Abstract:
A multilane extension of the single-lane anisotropic continuum model (GK model) developed by Gupta and Katiyar
for traffic flow is discussed with the consideration of the coupling effect between the vehicles of different lanes in the
instantaneous traffic situation and the lane-changing effect. The conditions for securing the linear stability of the
new model are presented. The shock and the rarefaction waves, the local cluster effect and the phase transition are
investigated through simulation experiments with the new model and are found to be consistent with the diverse
nonlinear dynamical phenomena observed in a real traffic flow. The analysis also focuses on empirically observed twolane phenomena, such as lane usage inversion and the density dependence of the number of lane changes. It is shown
that single-lane dynamics can be extended to multilane cases without changing the basic properties of the single-lane
model. The results show that the new multilane model is capable of explaining some particular traffic phenomena and
is in accordance with real traffic flow.
