Vehicular Motion and Traffic Breakdown: Evaluation of Energy Balance

Microscopic traffic models based on follow–the–leader behaviour are strongly asymmetrically interacting many–particle systems. The well–known Bando’s optimal velocity model includes the fact that (firstly) the driver is always looking forward interacting with the lead vehicle and (secondly) the car travels on the road always with friction. Due to these realistic assumptions the moving car needs petrol for the engine to compensate dissipation by rolling friction. We investigate the flux of mechanical energy to evaluate the energy balance out of the given nonlinear dynamical system of vehicular particles. In order to understand the traffic breakdown as transition from free flow to congested traffic we estimate the total energy per car at low and high densities and observe the energy of jam formation.