Preliminary Study On Chaos In Traffic Flow

Research in chaos is a new method in science of traffic. Chaotic theory can provide new methods to cognize and grasp the essences and rules of the traffic system. The studies of traffic flow chaos at home and at abroad are all in beginning step. There are various nonlinear dynamical phases in traffic system. The results of resent studies had shown the bright way in traffic flow chaos.In the beginning, backgrounds and resent research of the new branch have been introduced. Some models had been sued in traffic flow have been presented, especially emphasized cellular automation model. There are two kinds of cellular automation models. One-dimensional and two-dimensional models have all been discussed in this paper.The research way was using models to study chaos in traffic flow. Firstly, One-dimensional cellular automation of three-lane was presented to study chaos in traffic flow. The new model is more able to show the many lanes in real traffic flow. In the model, the probabilities of lane change, acceleration and brake follow the broadly general distribution---the Erlang distribution. So the model is more real to simulate the uncertainty of real traffic flow. Secondly, simulated traffic flow was formed based of the new model. The data serials of traffic flow were generated through simulating. The result that there is chaos in traffic flow was proved through analyzing the data serials. Thirdly, the real traffic flow was studied to prove the correctness and reliability of the result.Certainly, theoretical researches aim at practical application in engineering. Effective ways could be made to keep the stabile and orderly state of traffic flow making use of the knowledge of chaos. Chaos controlling is based on the chaos theory in traffic flow.At last, a summary of this dissertation is made and research prospect of traffic flow chaos is given.