First order phase transition from free flow to synchronized flow in a cellular automata model

This paper presents an improved cellular automata model, which is based on three phase traffic theory and can reproduce the first order phase transition from free flow to synchronized flow. The fundamental diagram, the spacetime plots, and the 1-min average flux density diagram are presented. The autocorrelation and cross correlation functions are studied to identity the synchronized flow state. It is shown that the results of the model are well consistent with the empirical findings. Copyright EDP Sciences/Società Italiana di Fisica/Springer-Verlag 2005