Jamming Transition in CA Models 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. We present data from numerical simulations which suggest the absence of critical behavior in the presence of noise. The transition of the deterministic case is smeared out and one only observes the remnants of the critical point.