2-LANE TRAFFIC RULES FOR CELLULAR-AUTOMATA - A SYSTEMATIC-APPROACH

Microscopic modeling of multilane traffic is usually done by applying heuristic lane changing rules and often with unsatisfying results. Rec ently, a cellular automaton model for two-lane traffic was able to ove rcome some of these problems and to generate the density inversion fou nd in many European countries at densities somewhat below the maximum flow density. In this paper we summarize different approaches to lane changing and their results and propose a general scheme, according to which realistic lane changing rules can be developed. We test this sch eme by applying it to several different lane changing rules, which, in spite of their differences, generate similar and realistic results. W e thus conclude that, for producing realistic results, the logical str ucture of the lane changing rules, as proposed here, is at least as im portant as the microscopic details of the rules.