Abstract
This paper proposes refined cellular automata (CA) rules, including anticipation effect, slow-to-start, lane change, and interaction among vehicles to explore the fundamental traffic features. Generalized definitions of traffic variables, in spatiotemporal sense, and a new concept of common unit (CU) for gauging non-identical vehicle sizes and various lane widths are presented. The simulation experiments are tested on a two-lane highway context. The effects of both stationary and slow-moving bottlenecks on global traffic are also examined. Vehicular trajectories, flow-occupancy, and spatiotemporal traffic patterns under deterministic and stochastic conditions are displayed. The results reveal noticeable traffic patterns with free flow, wide moving jam and synchronized flow phases. This study has demonstrated that the proposed refined CA models are capable of capturing the essential features of traffic flows.
