Will jams get worse when slow cars move over?
Abstract
Motivated by an analogy with traffic, we simulate two species of particles (`vehicles'), moving stochastically in opposite directions on a two-lane ring road. Each species prefers one lane over the other, controlled by a parameter such that corresponds to random lane choice and to perfect `laning'. We find that the system displays one large cluster (`jam') whose size increases with , contrary to intuition. Even more remarkably, the lane `charge' (a measure for the number of particles in their preferred lane) exhibits a region of negative response: even though vehicles experience a stronger preference for the `right' lane, more of them find themselves in the `wrong' one! For very close to 1, a sharp transition restores a homogeneous state. Various characteristics of the system are computed analytically, in good agreement with simulation data.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0503413,
title = {Will jams get worse when slow cars move over?},
author = {B. Schmittmann and J. Krometis and R. K. P. Zia},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0503413},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
7 pages, 3 figures; to appear in Europhysics Letters (2005)