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arXiv · 0807.3710

A Power Law for the Duration of High-Flow States in Heterogeneous Traffic Flows

Dirk Helbing·Benno Tilch
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Abstract

We study the duration of "high-flow states" in freeway traffic, defined as the time periods for which traffic flows exceed a given flow threshold. Our empirical data are surprisingly well represented by a power law. Moreover, the power law exponent is approximately 2, in dependently of the chosen flow threshold. In order to explain this discovery, we investigate a simple theoretical model of heterogeneous traffic with overtaking maneuvers, which is able to reproduce both, the empirical power law and its exponent.

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Dirk Helbing, Benno Tilch. 2008-07-23. A Power Law for the Duration of High-Flow States in Heterogeneous Traffic Flows. https://arxiv.org/abs/0807.3710

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