9,731 research outputs found
The Spatial Variability of Vehicle Densities as Determinant of Urban Network Capacity
Due to the complexity of the traffic flow dynamics in urban road networks,
most quantitative descriptions of city traffic so far are based on computer
simulations. This contribution pursues a macroscopic (fluid-dynamic) simulation
approach, which facilitates a simple simulation of congestion spreading in
cities. First, we show that a quantization of the macroscopic turning flows
into units of single vehicles is necessary to obtain realistic fluctuations in
the traffic variables, and how this can be implemented in a fluid-dynamic
model. Then, we propose a new method to simulate destination flows without the
requirement of individual route assignments. Combining both methods allows us
to study a variety of different simulation scenarios. These reveal fundamental
relationships between the average flow, the average density, and the
variability of the vehicle densities. Considering the inhomogeneity of traffic
as an independent variable can eliminate the scattering of congested flow
measurements. The variability also turns out to be a key variable of urban
traffic performance. Our results can be explained through the number of full
links of the road network, and approximated by a simple analytical formula
The Dynamics of Internet Traffic: Self-Similarity, Self-Organization, and Complex Phenomena
The Internet is the most complex system ever created in human history.
Therefore, its dynamics and traffic unsurprisingly take on a rich variety of
complex dynamics, self-organization, and other phenomena that have been
researched for years. This paper is a review of the complex dynamics of
Internet traffic. Departing from normal treatises, we will take a view from
both the network engineering and physics perspectives showing the strengths and
weaknesses as well as insights of both. In addition, many less covered
phenomena such as traffic oscillations, large-scale effects of worm traffic,
and comparisons of the Internet and biological models will be covered.Comment: 63 pages, 7 figures, 7 tables, submitted to Advances in Complex
System
A numerical investigation of the jamming transition in traffic flow on diluted planar networks
In order to develop a toy model for car's traffic in cities, in this paper we
analyze, by means of numerical simulations, the transition among fluid regimes
and a congested jammed phase of the flow of "kinetically constrained" hard
spheres in planar random networks similar to urban roads. In order to explore
as timescales as possible, at a microscopic level we implement an event driven
dynamics as the infinite time limit of a class of already existing model (e.g.
"Follow the Leader") on an Erdos-Renyi two dimensional graph, the crossroads
being accounted by standard Kirchoff density conservations. We define a
dynamical order parameter as the ratio among the moving spheres versus the
total number and by varying two control parameters (density of the spheres and
coordination number of the network) we study the phase transition. At a
mesoscopic level it respects an, again suitable adapted, version of the
Lighthill-Whitham model, which belongs to the fluid-dynamical approach to the
problem. At a macroscopic level the model seems to display a continuous
transition from a fluid phase to a jammed phase when varying the density of the
spheres (the amount of cars in a city-like scenario) and a discontinuous jump
when varying the connectivity of the underlying network.Comment: accepted in Int.J.Mod.Phys.
The Hughes model for pedestrian dynamics and congestion modelling
In this paper we present a numerical study of some variations of the Hughes
model for pedestrian flow under different types of congestion effects. The
general model consists of a coupled non-linear PDE system involving an eikonal
equation and a first order conservation law, and it intends to approximate the
flow of a large pedestrian group aiming to reach a target as fast as possible,
while taking into account the congestion of the crowd.
We propose an efficient semi-Lagrangian scheme (SL) to approximate the
solution of the PDE system and we investigate the macroscopic effects of
different penalization functions modelling the congestion phenomena.Comment: 6 page
Adaptive fair channel allocation for QoS enhancement in IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs
The emerging widespread use of real-time multimedia applications over wireless networks makes the support of quality of service (QoS) a key problem. In this paper, we focus on QoS support mechanisms for IEEE 802.11 wireless ad-hoc networks. First, we review limitations of the upcoming IEEE 802.11e enhanced DCF (EDCF) and other enhanced MAC schemes that have been proposed to support QoS for 802.11 ad-hoc networks. Then, we describe a new scheme called adaptive fair EDCF that extends EDCF, by increasing the contention window during deferring periods when the channel is busy, and by using an adaptive fast backoff mechanism when the channel is idle. Our scheme computes an adaptive backoff threshold for each priority level by taking into account the channel load. The new scheme significantly improves the quality of multimedia applications. Moreover, it increases the overall throughput obtained both in medium and high load cases. Simulution results show that our new scheme outperforms EDCF and other enhanced schemes. Finally, we show that the adaptive fair EDCF scheme achieves a high degree of fairness among applications of the same priority level
Autonomous detection and anticipation of jam fronts from messages propagated by inter-vehicle communication
In this paper, a minimalist, completely distributed freeway traffic
information system is introduced. It involves an autonomous, vehicle-based jam
front detection, the information transmission via inter-vehicle communication,
and the forecast of the spatial position of jam fronts by reconstructing the
spatiotemporal traffic situation based on the transmitted information. The
whole system is simulated with an integrated traffic simulator, that is based
on a realistic microscopic traffic model for longitudinal movements and lane
changes. The function of its communication module has been explicitly validated
by comparing the simulation results with analytical calculations. By means of
simulations, we show that the algorithms for a congestion-front recognition,
message transmission, and processing predict reliably the existence and
position of jam fronts for vehicle equipment rates as low as 3%. A reliable
mode of operation already for small market penetrations is crucial for the
successful introduction of inter-vehicle communication. The short-term
prediction of jam fronts is not only useful for the driver, but is essential
for enhancing road safety and road capacity by intelligent adaptive cruise
control systems.Comment: Published in the Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the
Transportation Research Board 200
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