Phase transition in a new heterogeneous macro continuum model of traffic flow under rain and snow weather environment

Abstract

Rain and snow will affect the safe speed and safe distance between vehicles. Therefore, a new macroscopic continuum traffic model for mixed heterogeneous vehicles including adaptive cruise control (ACC) and conventional vehicles is provided by taking into account the safe speed and safe distance under rain and snow weather. Moreover, the stability conditions and KdV-Burgers equation related to rain and snow weather are inferred for mixed heterogeneous vehicles. Numerical simulation results show that traffic state is smoothed owing to reducing the current safe speed of vehicles and increasing the safe distance between vehicles under the rainy and snowy weather when the penetration rate of ACC vehicles is constant. Additionally, the traffic system runs more smoothly with the increase of ACC vehicles’ permeability, which means that the ACC vehicles are worth developing.