A fast simulation model for traffic flow on the basis of boolean operations

Abstract

A fast simulation model for the dynamic process of traffic flow through urban networks is presented. The model simulates the progression of cars on a street by moving 1 bit variables through binary positions of bytes in the storage which are arranged to copy the topology of a specified network. Skillful application of boolean operations enable the model to perform diverse movements of a vehicle like driving at a constant speed, lane changing, passing, decelerating and accelerating, queueing and turning at intersections. The model simulates accurately macroscopic phenomena of traffic flow while at the same time reproducing the main mechanisms of microscopic models. The computational requirements are rather low with respect to both storage and computation time making it possible to simulate large traffic networks on personal computers.