Traffic flow and 1/ffluctuations

Abstract

We study the traffic flow in the hydrodynamic limit, where the analogy to fluid flow leads to the traffic equation in the form of the Navier-Stokes equation. It is shown that the traffic equation exhibits a variety of behaviors such as homogeneous flow, turbulent behavior, and density waves with fluctuations in the appropriate regime. In particular, the stability against random fluctuations and the possibility of 1/f fluctuations in the traffic current are investigated. (c) 1995 The American Physical Society