Energy dissipation of traffic flow at an on-ramp

•Investigate the energy dissipation of on-ramp traffic flow system.•Explore the energy dissipation rates under different injected probabilities.•Estimate the critical value of the injected probability with on-ramp situation.

This paper proposes a new cellular automaton traffic model to study the energy dissipation in an on-ramp traffic system. Different from previous works, we investigate not only the traffic behavior in on-ramp flow system, but also the variation of energy dissipation in it. The numerical simulations are carried out and the influences of the injected probabilities and removed probability on energy dissipation are studied respectively. The results show there exist a critical point for the injected probability and a platform for energy dissipation. The results also indicate that the removed probability plays a chief role in avoiding traffic jam and reducing the energy dissipation, which is significant to explore the evolution of traffic congestion and the reduction of vehicle emission.