Adaptive drivers in a model of urban traffic

Abstract

We introduce a simple lattice model of traffic flow in a city where drivers optimize their route-selection in time in order to avoid traffic jams, and study its phase structure as a function of the density of vehicles and of the drivers' behavioral parameters via numerical simulations and mean-field analytical arguments. We identify a phase transition between a low- and a high-density regime. In the latter, inductive drivers may surprisingly behave worse than randomly selecting drivers.