Computable throughput and metastability in a cellular automaton model for traffic flow (Q2510936)

Summary: A cellular automaton model for traffic flow is analyzed. For this model, it is shown that under ergodic initial configurations, the distribution of cars will converge in time to a mixture of free flow and solid blocks. Furthermore, the nature of the free flow and solid block distributions is fully described, thus allowing for a specific computation of throughput in terms of the parameters. The model is also shown to exhibit a hysteresis phenomenon, which is similar to what has been observed on actual highways.