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DY: Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 23: Statistical Physics (general) II

DY 23.6: Talk

Tuesday, March 28, 2006, 13:00–13:15, SCH 251

The inverse scattering problem of traffic flow — •Martin Treiber, Arne Kesting, and Dirk Helbing — Technische Universität Dresden

We discuss one-dimensional stochastic driven multi-particle systems with asymmetric next-neighbour interactions such as traffic flow. Based on a Fokker-Planck approach, it is possible to approximatively calculate the stationary velocity and distance distributions among the elements (driver-vehicle units) as a function of the generalized interaction potential. The results relate to the ones known from Random Matrix Theory.

In this contribution, we propose a method to treat the inverse problem, i.e., determining the generalized interaction potential, the acceleration function, and the strength of the stochastic force from empirical single-vehicle data. We apply the method to data from a Dutch freeway and compare the resulting empirical acceleration function with that of popular car-following models.