A statistical theory to aggregation in one-dimensional freeway traffic (Q616235)

The authors consider traffic as a many-body interacting system. Considering traffic as a compressible flow or describing the car-interaction within microscopic theory, all traffic models show a phase transition between freely moving cars to a car cluster regime with start-stop waves. In the works by \textit{Mahnke} and \textit{Pieret} [Phys. Rev. E56 (11), 2666 (1997)] and \textit{Li, Lin} and \textit{Huang} [Chin. Phys. 16, 753 (2007)] traffic is described by a master equation, and the transition probability of escaping from a car cluster was considered to be constant. The present paper deals with the construction of the transition probabilities. Thus the master equation of a car cluster in one-lane freeway traffic is reinvestigated on the basis of a linear assumption of the transition rates. That means, the rate of the attachment of free cars to a cluster and the rate of escaping of a car from the cluster depend on the cluster size \(n\) linearly. The expression of the mean size of the cluster versus time \(t\) is derived by solution of the birth-death equation. The authors also obtain an analytical expression for the probability distribution \(P(n,t)\). Numerical simulations testify the obtained results as well.