Jam-absorption driving with a car-following model

Jam-absorption driving (JAD) refers to the action performed by a single car to dynamically change its headway to remove a traffic jam. Because of its irregular motion, a car performing JAD perturbs other cars following it, and these perturbations may grow to become the so-called secondary traffic jams. A basic theory for JAD (Nishi et al. 2013) does not consider accelerations of cars or the stability of traffic flow. In this paper, by introducing car-following behaviors, we implement these elements in JAD. Numerous previous studies on the instability of traffic flow showed that even in a region whose density is below a critical density, perturbation may grow if its initial magnitude is large. According to these previous studies, we expect that the perturbations caused by JAD, if they are sufficiently small, do not grow to become secondary traffic jams. Using a microscopic car-following model, we numerically confirmed that the stability of a flow obeying the model depends on the magnitude of JAD perturbations. On the basis of this knowledge, numerical results indicate that parameter regions exist where JAD allows traffic jams to be removed without causing secondary traffic jams. Moreover, JAD is robust against a parameter of acceleration in the model, as well as the choice of car-following models.