Jamming transition in a cellular automaton model for traffic flow

Abstract

The cellular automaton model for traffic flow exhibits a jamming transition from a free-flow phase to a congested phase. In the deterministic case this transition corresponds to a critical point with diverging correlation length. In the presence of noise, however, no consistent picture has emerged up to now. We present data from numerical simulations which suggest the absence of critical behavior. The transition of the deterministic case is smeared out and one only observes the remnants of the critical point.