Near-Collision Dynamics in a Noisy Car-Following Model

Abstract

We consider a small stochastic perturbation of an optimal velocity car-following model. We give a detailed analysis of behavior near a collision singularity. We show that collision is impossible in a simplified model without noise, and then show that collision is asymptotically unlikely over large time intervals in the presence of small noise, with the large time interval scaling like the square of the reciprocal of the strength of the noise. Our calculations depend on careful boundary-layer analyses.