Hikaru Shimizu

Comparison of Zipper and Non-Zipper Merging Patterns Near Merging Point of Roads

At the merging point, vehicles on the main road must reduce their velocity to avoid slow merging vehicles from a branch road, which leads to a traffic jam. Some researchers point out the effectiveness of a zipper merging pattern for improving the traffic near the merging point. In this study, the authors discuss the effectiveness of a zipper merging pattern using cellular automata simulation. Firstly, the single and multiple vehicle following models are defined. The stability analysis of the models then gives the parameters. In the simulation, two merging patterns are compared. In the non-zipper merging pattern, two vehicles merge continuously from a branch road. In the zipper merging pattern, two vehicles merge between main road vehicles. The results show that the zipper merging pattern is more effective than the non-zipper merging pattern for reducing the traffic jam near the merging point.

Effectiveness of Information from Vehicles beyond Nearest Vehicle Ahead for Traffic Flow

A driver usually controls the vehicle according to only the information from the nearest leader vehicle. If the information from the other leader vehicles is also available, the driver can control the vehicle more adequately. The aim of this study is to discuss the effectiveness of the information from the other leader vehicles than the nearest one for the traffic flow. For this purpose, the traffic flow is modeled by using the Chandler-type multi-vehicle-following model. This model changes the vehicle acceleration rate according to the velocity differences between the vehicle and its multileader vehicles. After the model stability analysis, the traffic flow simulation is performed. The results reveal that the stable region of the model parameters expands according to the increase of the number of the leader vehicles.

Three-Dimensional Structural Design Using Local Rule

This paper describes the design scheme of the three-dimensional structures based on the concept of the cellular automata simulation. The structural optimization in the present method is performed according to the local rule. The penelty function is defined from two objective functions and the constraint condition. Minimization of the penalty function with respect to the design parameter leads to the local rule. The derved rule is applied to the design of the three-dimensional structure applied to a single load and the schemes to reduce the computational cost are discussed.