Traffic jams and ordering far from thermal equilibrium

Abstract

The recently suggested correspondence between domain dynamics of traffic models and the asymmetric chipping model is reviewed. It is observed that in many cases traffic domains perform the two characteristic dynamical processes of the chipping model, namely chipping and diffusion. This correspondence indicates that jamming in traffic models in which all dynamical rates are non-deterministic takes place as a broad crossover phenomenon, rather than a sharp transition. Two traffic models are studied in detail and analyzed within this picture.

Contribution to the Niels Bohr Summer Institute on Complexity and Criticality; to appear in a Per Bak Memorial Issue of PHYSICA A