Analysis of traffic dynamics on a ring road-based transportation network by means of 0-1 test for chaos and Lyapunov spectrum

This paper considers the dynamics of traffic on a ring road-based transportation network around a major city, via traffic flow time series analysis and characterization. In particular, three traffic flow time series are examined. Two of the time series are acquired from measurement stations located on highways, while one is from a station on the ring road around Ljubljana city. For the analysis and characterization of time series the novel test called 0-1 test for chaos is applied. Based on the outputs of the test it is concluded that the observed traffic dynamics is inherently chaotic. Additionally, a more detailed characterization of traffic dynamics is carried out on Lyapunov spectrum basis, which reveals that traffic dynamics on the highway is quantitatively quite different from the traffic dynamics on the ring road.