Comparing traffic flow models with different number of ”phases”

Abstract

Currently, there is an ongoing debate in the traffic flow community concerning the correct empirical and theoretical description of the observations reported in [2]. Mainly three candidates are striving to describe the empirical obser- vations. Following a good tradition, we will call those different approaches hypotheses in the following. Their final goal is to explain (or, a bit more cau- tious, to describe) the various traffic flow patterns. The different models itself will be described in this text from the perspective of microscopic traffic flow (car-following) models, and we rely on the most simple of those models.