Effects of lane switching behavior and velocity distributions in two lane vehicular traffic flow

Abstract

We propose a cellular automaton model for two-lane vehicular traffic flow. Using this model, we observe the effects of different velocity distributions, different frequencies of periodically switching traffic lights and different lane switching behavior on the average throughput and the average transit time of the vehicles. The model treats vehicular traffic as a dynamical system where vehicles behave like mutually interacting particles. The treatment allows us to utilize the same tools for analyzing phase transitions in complex systems.