A new lattice hydrodynamic model considering the effects of bilateral gaps on vehicular traffic flow

This study proposes a new lattice hydrodynamic model considering the effects of bilateral gaps on a road without lane discipline. In particular, a lattice hydrodynamic model is proposed to capture the impacts from the lateral gaps of the right-side and left-side sites of the considered lattice sites. Linear stability analysis of the proposed model is performed using the perturbation method to obtain the stability condition. Nonlinear analysis of the proposed model is performed using the reductive perturbation method to derive the modified Korteweg–de Vries (mKdV) equation to characterize the density wave propagation. Results from numerical experiments illustrate that the smoothness and stability of the proposed model are improved compared with the model that considers the effect of unilateral gap. Also, the proposed model is able to more quickly dissipate the effect of perturbation occurring in the vehicular traffic flow.