Invariance and homogenization of an adaptive time gap car-following model

Abstract

In this paper we consider a microscopic model of traffic flow called the adaptive time gap car-following model. This is a system of ODEs which describes the interactions between cars moving on a single line. The time gap is the time that a car needs to reach the position of the car in front of it (if the car in front of it would not move and if the moving car would not change its velocity). In this model, both the velocity of the car and the time gap satisfy an ODE. We study this model and show that under certain assumptions, there is an invariant set for which the dynamics is defined for all times and for which we have a comparison principle. As a consequence, we show rigorously that after rescaling, this microscopic model converges to a macroscopic model that can be identified as the classical LWR model for traffic.