Energy Consumption in Traffic Flow with a Slowdown Section

Based on the Nagel-Schreckenberg model, an extended cellular automaton model is proposed to simulate the characteristics of the energy consumption in traffic flow with a slowdown section by considering the stochastic noise, the length and speed limit of the slowdown section. The simulation results show that the energy consumption is determined by the length L-s of the slowdown section as well as the speed limit V-s of the slowdown section. The smaller V-s and the larger L-s can effectively alleviate energy consumption. Through vehicle accidents and energy consumption analysis, an important conclusion is drawn that V-s =1 may be an optimum design to drive safely and reduce energy consumption from traffic control. Furthermore, the stochastic braking probability P has also an important effect on energy consumption.