Flow difference effect in the lattice hydrodynamic model

In this paper, a new lattice hydrodynamic model based on Nagatani’s model [Nagatani T 1998 Physica A 261 599] is presented by introducing the flow difference effect. The stability condition for the new model is obtained by using the linear stability theory. The result shows that considering the flow difference effect leads to stabilization of the system compared with the original lattice hydrodynamic model. The jamming transitions among the freely moving phase, the coexisting phase, and the uniform congested phase are studied by nonlinear analysis. The modified KdV equation near the critical point is derived to describe the traffic jam, and kink–antikink soliton solutions related to the traffic density waves are obtained. The simulation results are consistent with the theoretical analysis for the new model.