Bunching and transition of vehicles controlled by a sequence of traffic lights

We study the dynamical behavior of many vehicles with different desired velocities, moving through a sequence of traffic lights on a single-lane highway, where the traffic lights turn on and off periodically with the synchronized strategy. The dynamics of vehicular traffic controlled by traffic lights is described in terms of the nonlinear maps. For specific values of cycle time, the group (cluster) of vehicles exhibits the bunching without extending over the highway. It is found that two types of traffic states appear: the one is the bunching traffic and the other is the extended traffic. In the bunching traffic, all vehicles move together with the same tour time, while vehicles spread over the highway in the extended traffic. The dynamical transition between two traffic states occurs at specific values of cycle time. The phase diagram (region map) is presented.