Asymmetric simple exclusion process describing conflicting traffic flows

¹  Department of Physics, Zanjan University - P.O. Box 45196-313, Zanjan, Iran
²  Computational Physical Sciences Research Laboratory, Department of Nano-Sciences, Institute for Studies in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics (IPM) - P.O. Box 19395-5531, Tehran, Iran

Received: 13 May 2007
Accepted: 12 October 2007

Abstract

We use the asymmetric simple exclusion process for describing the vehicular traffic flow at the intersection of two streets. No traffic lights control the traffic flow. The cars approaching to the intersection point yield to each other to avoid collision. This yielding dynamics is modelled by implementing the exclusion process to the intersection point of the two streets. Closed boundary condition is applied to the streets. We utilize both mean-field approach and extensive simulations to find the model characteristics. In particular, we obtain the fundamental diagrams and show that the effect of interaction between chains can be regarded as a dynamic impurity at the intersection point.