DOI: 10.1051/jp1:1995206
J. Phys. I France 5 (1995) 1389-1399

Phenomenological Study of Dynamical Model of Traffic Flow

Masako Bando¹, Katsuya Hasebe¹, Ken Nakanishi², Akihiro Nakayama³, Akihiro Shibata⁴ and Yuki Sugiyama<sup>5

1</sup>  Physics Division, Aichi University, Miyoshi, Aichi 470-02, Japan
²  Department of Physics, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-01, Japan
³  Gifu Keizai Unversity, Ohgaki, Gifu 503, Japan
⁴  Department of Physics, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-01, Japan
⁵  Division of Mathematical Science, City College of Mie, Tsu, Mie 514-01, Japan

(Received 26 June 1995, received in final form 12 July 1995, accepted 21 July 1995)

Abstract
We show that the Car Following Model with Optimal Velocity (Optimal Velocity Model), which was proposed in our previous paper, is a successful traffic model in reproducing the characteristic features of observed traffic flow data. In our model the transition from free flow to congested flow occurs spontaneously by the collective motion of vehicles, which obey to the same dynamical equation. The observed specific discrepancy of traffic flow vs. car density graph is well understood in terms of the phase transition in our model.

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