The role of interruptions in V2V communication: Investigating the consequences on passing and attention

Abstract

Traffic disruptions are one of the primary causes of congestion, especially when the number of vehicles increases. We create a novel optimal velocity model to investigate the impact of traffic interruption probability on traffic flow in vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) environment. To better understand how interruptions affect traffic flow, this model allows for passing maneuvers and includes a driver attentiveness term. We study traffic flow’s linear and nonlinear stability, focusing on the impact of interruption probability on the phase diagram, both theoretically and numerically. For the mKdV equation, the existence requirements for the “kink-antikink soliton” solutions are obtained. A change from smooth flow to kink flow and sometimes chaotic flow as the risk of an interruption goes up in the stable zone. At lower values of the non-interruption effect, there is a typical jamming transition between uniform flow and kink flow. Numerical simulations validate our theoretical conclusions, demonstrating that allowing passing and considering driver attention significantly influence traffic flow stabilization whereas continuous interruption has a negligible impact on stability.