Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society
Volume 2013 (2013), Article ID 320943, 7 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/320943
Research Article

Individual Subjective Initiative Merge Model Based on Cellular Automaton

Yin-Jie Xu,1 Yu-Guang Chen,1 Chao Yang,2 and Yi-Chao Pu2

1Pohl Institute of Solid State Physics, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
2Key Laboratory of Road and Traffic Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, China

Received 2 August 2012; Revised 2 January 2013; Accepted 3 January 2013

Academic Editor: Wuhong Wang

Copyright © 2013 Yin-Jie Xu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

The merge control models proposed for work zones are classified into two types (Hard Control Merge (HCM) model and Soft Control Merge (SCM) model) according to their own control intensity and are compared with a new model, called Individual Subjective Initiative Merge (ISIM) model, which is based on the linear lane-changing probability strategy in the merging area. The attention of this paper is paid to the positive impact of the individual subjective initiative for the whole traffic system. Three models (ISIM, HCM, and SCM) are established and compared with each other by two order parameters, that is, system output and average vehicle travel time. Finally, numerical results show that both ISIM and SCM perform better than HCM. Compared with SCM, the output of ISIM is 20 vehicles per hour higher under the symmetric input condition and is more stable under the asymmetric input condition. Meanwhile, the average travel time of ISIM is 2000 time steps less under the oversaturated input condition.