A Monte Carlo study of ant traffic in a uni-directional trail

In this study, we aim to investigate ant traffic in the uni-directional ant trail. We consider two types of ants moving in the trail: one of which smells well and the other does not. The theoretical base of the study is similar to that of the Nagel–Schreckenberg (NaSch) model, but we do not use the exclusion rule, the asymmetrical exclusion rule is employed instead. Ants are placed on the trail as mixed. By keeping the number of ‘poor-smelling ants’ constant, the traffic in the trail is studied as a function of the number of “good-smelling” ants and the evaporation rate probability of pheromone f. The fundamental physical quantities, i.e., mean speed V and flux F, interestingly show non-monotonic density dependence for some values of f at some densities.