A realistic simulation for Highway Traffic by the use of Cellular Automata

Abstract. A two lane, non-periodic highway with on-ramps and off- ramps is simulated using a simple cellular automata model. The main experimenta1 features of highway traffic are reproduced, indicating the usefulness of this approach for the study of traffic and it is shown the need of ramps to produce congested traffic. A fractal dimension for the variables used for traffic analysis, that is car density, car speed and flow has been measured with a Box Counting algorithm. Finally, it is sug- gested how to perform real-time traffic forecasts