Metastable States in CA models for Traffic Flow

Abstract

Measurements of traffic flow show the existence of metastable states of very high throughput. These observations cannot be reproduced by the CA model of Nagel and Schreckenberg (NaSch model), not even qualitatively. Here we present two variants on the NaSch model with modified acceleration rules ('slow-to-start' rules). Although these models are still discrete in time and space, different types of metastable states can be observed.