A simple contagion process describes spreading of traffic jams in urban networks
Abstract
The spread of traffic jams in urban networks has long been viewed as a complex spatio-temporal phenomenon that often requires computationally intensive microscopic models for analysis purposes. In this study, we present a framework to describe the dynamics of congestion propagation and dissipation of traffic in cities using a simple contagion process, inspired by those used to model infectious disease spread in a population. We introduce two macroscopic characteristics for network traffic dynamics, namely congestion propagation rate β and congestion dissipation rate μ. We describe the dynamics of congestion spread using these new parameters embedded within a system of ordinary differential equations, similar to the well-known susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) model. The proposed contagion-based dynamics are verified through an empirical multi-city analysis, and can be used to monitor, predict and control the fraction of congested links in the network over time.
- Publication:
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Nature Communications
- Pub Date:
- April 2020
- DOI:
- 10.1038/s41467-020-15353-2
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1906.00585
- Bibcode:
- 2020NatCo..11.1616S
- Keywords:
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- Physics - Physics and Society;
- Electrical Engineering and Systems Science - Systems and Control
- E-Print:
- 10 pages, 8 figures