Recently published work in Proceedings of the Royal Society presents a model of traffic behaviour that explains how an unexpected event as simple as a car changing lanes, or a bus breaking suddenly, can bring traffic to a grinding halt kilometres behind the incident. The modelling is based on bifurcation theory, which studies how and when mathematical problems change from having only one possible solution to having many.
Authors:
Gábor Orosz – Bristol Centre for Applied Nonlinear Mathematics, Department of Engineering Mathematics, University of Bristol.
Gábor Stépán – Department of Applied Mechanics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics.
Full article (pdf).
