The Influences of Preceding Vehicle Taillights on Macro Traffic Flow

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that preceding vehicle taillights can have influences on driving behavior. In this paper, we present a macroscopic traffic flow model that considers the front taillights to investigate the impacts of taillights on the evolutions of traffic flow in three typical states (i.e., shock waves, rarefaction waves, and small perturbations). The numerical results indicate that under the influence of preceding vehicle taillights the shock wave is smoother and the rarefaction wave is unchanged. The small perturbation can dissipate without amplification at moderate traffic flow density when the driver’s sensitivity to the taillights of the preceding vehicle is sufficiently large. The results indicate that more attention to the preceding vehicle taillights can enhance traffic safety and stability.