Effects of the lattice point drivers’ heterogeneity of the disturbance risk preference on traffic flow instability

•We define the lattice point drivers’ disturbance risk preference and its heterogeneity.•We propose a new one-dimensional traffic flow lattice model.•We research the effects of the lattice point drivers’ heterogeneity of the disturbance risk preference on traffic flow instability.•The new model yields some insights to reduce traffic flow instability.

This paper defines the lattice point drivers’ heterogeneity of the disturbance risk preference and proposes a new one-dimensional traffic flow lattice model to research the effects of the lattice point drivers’ heterogeneity of the disturbance risk preference on traffic flow instability. By the analytical analysis, we obtain the traffic flow instability condition and the modified Korteweg–de Vries (mKdV) equation and the calculation formula of the unstable area density range, and the calculation method of the probability of traffic congestion caused by a small disturbance. Both the analytical and the simulation analysis show that there are important effects of the lattice point drivers’ heterogeneity of the disturbance risk preference on traffic flow instability, namely the smaller the ratio of the preceding lattice point drivers’ coefficient of the disturbance risk preference to the following lattice point drivers’ coefficient of the disturbance risk preference is, the smaller the traffic flow instability is and vice versa. It provides a viable idea to ease traffic congestion.