Critical behavior of a traffic flow model

The Nagel-Schreckenberg traffic Bow model shows a transition from a free Bo w regime to a jammed regime for increasing car density. The measurement of the dynamical structure factor offers the chance to observe the evolution o f jams without the necessity to define a car to be jammed or not. Above the jamming transition the dynamical structure: factor exhibits for a given k value two maxima corresponding to the separation of the system into the foe flow phase and jammed phase. We obtain from a finite-size scaling analysis of the smallest jam mode that upon approaching the transition, long-range correlations of the jams occur. [S1063-651X(99)03303-6].