Analysis of the wave properties of a new two-lane continuum model with the coupling effect

Abstract

A multilane extension of the single-lane anisotropic continuum model (GK model) developed by Gupta and Katiyar for traffic flow is discussed with the consideration of the coupling effect between the vehicles of different lanes in the instantaneous traffic situation and the lane-changing effect. The conditions for securing the linear stability of the new model are presented. The shock and the rarefaction waves, the local cluster effect and the phase transition are investigated through simulation experiments with the new model and are found to be consistent with the diverse nonlinear dynamical phenomena observed in a real traffic flow. The analysis also focuses on empirically observed two-lane phenomena, such as lane usage inversion and the density dependence of the number of lane changes. It is shown that single-lane dynamics can be extended to multilane cases without changing the basic properties of the single-lane model. The results show that the new multilane model is capable of explaining some particular traffic phenomena and is in accordance with real traffic flow.