Interaction of jamitons in second-order macroscopic traffic models

Abstract Jamitons are self-sustained traveling wave solutions that arise in certain second-order macroscopic models of vehicular traffic. A necessary condition for a jamiton to appear is that the local traffic density breaks the so-called sub-characteristic condition. This condition states that the characteristic velocity of the corresponding first-order Lighthill–Whitham–Richards model formed with the same desired speed function is enclosed by the characteristic speeds of the corresponding second-order model. The phenomenon of collision of jamitons in second-order models of traffic flow is studied analytically and numerically for the particular case of the second-order Aw–Rascle–Zhang traffic model (Aw and Rascle 2000 SIAM J. Appl. Math. 60 916–38; Zhang 2002 Transp. Res. B 36 275–90). A compatibility condition is first defined to select jamitons that can collide each other. The collision of jamitons produces a new jamiton with a velocity different from the initial ones. It is observed that the exit velocities smooth out the velocity of the test jamiton and the initial velocities of the jamitons that collide. Other properties such as the amplitude of the exit jamitons, lengths, and maximum density are also explored. In the cases of the amplitude and maximum exit density it turns out that over a wide range of sonic densities, the exit values exceed or equal the input values. On the other hand, the resulting jamiton has a greater length than the incoming ones. Finally, the behavior for various driver reaction times is explored. It is obtained that some properties do not depend on that time, such as the amplitude, exit velocity, or maximum density, while the exit length does depend on driver reaction time.