Analytical studies on an extended car following model for mixed traffic flow with slow and fast vehicles

Abstract

The car-following model is extended to take into account the characteristics of mixed traffic flow containing fast and slow vehicles. We conduct the linear stability analysis to the extended model with finding that the traffic flow can be stabilized with the increase of the percentage of the slow vehicle. It also can be concluded that the stabilization of the traffic flow closely depends on not only the average value of two maximum velocities characterizing two vehicle types, but also the standard deviation of the maximum velocities among all vehicles, when the percentage of the slow vehicles is the same as that of the fast ones. With increase of the average maximum velocity, the traffic flow becomes more and more unstable, while the increase of the standard deviation takes negative effect in stabilizing the traffic system. The direct numerical results are in good agreement with those of theoretical analysis. Moreover, the relation between the flux and the traffic density is investigated to simulate the effects of the percentage of slow vehicles on traffic flux in the whole density regions.