A CELLULAR AUTOMATA MODEL FOR HIGHWAY TRAFFIC WITH PRELIMINARY RESULTS

Cellular Automata are an established formal support for modelling traffic. STRATUNA is a Cellular Automata model for simulating two/three lanes highway traffic. It is based on an extensive specification of the driver response to the surrounding conditions. The model is deterministic with regard to driver behaviour, even if values of parameters ruling the reactivity level of the drivers are assigned stochastically. Probability distribution functions were deduced by field data and applied to vehicular flow generation (vehicle types, driver desired speed, entrance-exit gates). A partial implementation of STRATUNA was perforrned and applied to Italian highway A4 from Venice to Trieste. Simulations were compared with available field data with results that may be certainly considered encouraging in this initial implementation.