2009 International Joint Conference on Computational Sciences and Optimization

Mixed Flow Simulation at Urban Intersections: Computational

Comparisons between Conflict-point Detection and Cellular Automata
Models
Lishao Wang, Baohua Mao, Shaokuan Chen
Integrated Transport Research Center of
China, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing,
China, 100044
leonwls@163.com

and cars), are more serious than those in developed

countries.
There are three methods to modeling mixed flows
at intersections. They are No-motors and Pedestrians
Interfering Math-model (NPIM), Hyper-Petri
Networks (HPN) model, and 2D Cellular Automata
Model (CA). The main target of the NPIM model is
to use an interfering function f BW
through

Abstract
This paper presents a continuous simulation-based
model for mixed traffic flow between motor and
non-motor vehicles at intersections in major cities in
China. Not like in developed countries, conflict
points and rule-less of mixed flow in intersection,
which greatly impaired the traffic capacity, is the
major traffic issues at the intersections in China,
Therefore, we introduce a Conflict-point Detection
(CD) model using conflict points information
between motor (e.g. cars, buses, and motorcycles)
and non-motor vehicles (e.g. bicycles and
pedestrians) based on continuous simulation
methodologies to improve this situation. The
differences of space and time complexities between
CD and cellular automata (CA) models are employed
through simulation examples. Results show that the
CD model is pretty fitting for the practical traffic
analysis to deal with traffic safety issues and help to
diminish the chaos at the intersections greatly.

data-collecting and infection-analyzing of the

no-motors and pedestrians, where the function f BW
is used as the resistance of the intersection to
simulate the interference between motors and
non-motors [1-4]. The HPN model sets up a
Hyper-Petri Net

HPN = f ( x1, x2 ,..., xn ) which has

remembrance
ability
of
connecting
those
intersections, and then gives the mapping rules
according to HPN principles with the influencing
parameters. The status of the networks will be
deduced by the pre-related functions and post-related
functions afterwards. So it can simulate the moving
procedure of the MUs [5]. Compared with NPIM and
HPN methods using functions and rules, CA model
provides a well structured micro-simulation method
and is easy to be implemented. The main principle of
CA is to divide the space into several small cells, and
MUs are set as some of those occupied cells while
their distance are non-occupied ones, in which the
certain evolving rules will be enforced on these cells
(e.g. NS model [6] and Takayasus Model [7]). With
the process braking down, the transmission of the
cells can simulate the MUs movement. In the last
decade, 2D CA (two-dimension CA) model is wildly
used in mixed flows simulation for intersections
because of its simple structure and easy

1. Introduction
A typical heterogeneous traffic at intersections is
involving in different kinds of moving-units (MU):
such as cars, buses, motorcycles, bicycles, and
pedestrians in most of cities in China. At this
circumstance, an MU moving based on its own route
may have chance of interacting with others at some
places, namely conflict points. The conflict points,
where the potential collision could happen, are called
collision-unites (CU). In China, the collision, which
were happened in conflict points between motor and
non-motor vehicles (especially between pedestrians
978-0-7695-3605-7/09 $25.00 2009 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/CSO.2009.112

Kuiling Zhang
Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, Northwestern University,
600 Foster Street, Evanston, IL 60208,
U.S.A

100

where each direction has two lanes. The circles

identified by a number are those CUs.

implementation [8-12].
As described on these three models for mixed
traffic flow above, this study presents a continuous
microsimulation approach
for
modeling
heterogeneous mixed flows at urban intersections,
called the Conflict-point Detection (CD) model. The
MUs position can be reflected in continuous
coordinates in help on leading to more accurate
results. The model has an open structure and can
adopt many kinds of continuous system dynamic
functions. Besides it has superb computational
efficiency both for time and memory usage.
Moreover, this model was born with the instinct of
parallel computing, so that it can be easily used in
grid CPU environmental.

2. Conflict-point detection model

Figure 1. CU network representation

The CD model includes four main components: (i)

network representation; (ii) system dynamic function;
(iii) conflict negotiating function; and (iv) simulation
flow. Network representation is based on the HPN
model. It represents an intersection by some related
units (MUs and CUs), then connects them with an
HPN network under certain mapping rules T. At each
simulation step, MU updates its status based on a
system dynamic function f and CU updates its status
based on a collision negotiating function C . Before
or after update, it can also use pre-related functions
and post-related functions to influence other adjacent
units, (i.e. CUs and MUs). f can use some
car-following models or NPIM models in the
literature. The simulation flow in CD Model is
similar to the one in the CA model. Each unit will be
influenced by its adjacent unit ahead and update its
state under f. The difference from the CA model is
that the CD model updates procedure only by
changing its parameters of state while CA changes
the cells occupation. In addition, this model can take
use of most other properties of the CA model, e.g.
random-moderation (6). Also, the model can be
implemented in Object-Orient way, which is pretty
convenient to reflect characters of the mixed flows in
reality as well as simulate all kinds of MUS collision
in details.

Several specific adjacent CUs constitute the

trajectory of some MUs. For example:
(a) The trajectory of motor MU from east to north
will go through the CUs: 7-35-63-56-32-4.
(b) The trajectory of non-motor MU from east to
south will go through the CUs: 6-34-57-56-55-5453-52-58-64-70-76-82-45-17
(c) The trajectory of pedestrian MU from east to
north will go through the CUs: 26-39-38-37-36-3534-33-25, and so on.
Motor and non-motor MUs will be generated at the
starting CU of the trajectory and moving along with
their own trajectory until out of the end CU.

Pedestrian MU will be generated at the CU with

number: 24, 25, 26 and 27, and it will move to the
edge of the square with four points.
Each MU has its own trajectory information at the
time it is generated, and it will move through the
CUs at its trajectory under certain rules, such as a
system dynamic function as next subsection. In the
data structure, MU has only one forward and one
backward link pointer to connect its forward and
backward adjacent unit respectively. Then, MUs and
CUs construct a dynamic network topology. For
example, we have four motors, which are x1 x2 x3
x4, from east to north. A position snap-shot at time
can be 7-x1-35-63-x2-x3-56-32-x4-4.

2.1. Network representation

2.2. System Dynamic Function (SDF)
An intersection is modeled as a network
represented by CUs, where adjacent CUs are
connected each other based on the routes of all MUs.
As a result, the number of connections for the
different CUs is different. In this example, Figure 1
shows a CU network representation in this study,

Based on the network structure above in the

simulation step, system dynamic function can make
MU update its own state. The definition of SDF is as
follows:

101

Denote
as Eq. (1)
where

vt
at
pt
wt

x at a MU, suppose its state at time t is

St = S ( vt , at , pt , wt )

2.3. Conflict negotiating function

(1)

At time t, several MUs (e.g. ,x2,x3) may tend to

move to a same CU y, y will be detecting the states
of all MUs and permit only one MU to continue to
move in. For example, to avoid the collision in y ,x1
can pass y, yet x2, x3 will be decelerating. until x1
passes y, otherwise y will not do new negotiation
with these MUs, as shown in Figure 3.

is the velocity of x at time t

is the acceleration of x at time t
is the position of x x time t
is willing to accelerate of x at time t

(random error term followed some distribution, such

as a normal distribution)
Note that, this function can include other
parameters based on some specific algorithms, in
which those algorithms can reflect some other
characters such as traffic habits etc.
(2)
St +1 = f ( St , Ct , M t )
where Ct : is the situation of the forward adjacent
CU of x at time t
M t : is the situation of the forward adjacent

Figure 3. CU negotiating with adjacent MUs

MU or the forward adjacent MU who is adjacent

with the forward adjacent CU of x over time t
f: is a system dynamic function, and it is
heterogeneous and defined differently with different
motors, non-motors and pedestrians. Please note hat,
if there is not Ct term, f will degenerate to some

The collision function C is given in Eq. (3):

C t = C S t ( x1 ) , S t ( x 2 ) ,..., S t ( x n )
where,

(3)

x1 , x2 ,... are adjacent MUs going toward a

CU, and Ct+1 is belonging to (x1,x2,).

After MU detected the situation of its forward unit
in simulation, if it is a CU, then the MU will drive it
to run CNF and make a decision by the result of the
CNF.

general car-flowing functions.

When x passes through a CU, x will do some
transform by its defined post-related function based
on the HPN principle: x will move the CUs
pointer, which points x to the backward adjacent
unit and then move the pointer of backward adjacent
unit, which points x to the CU. x will move its
pointer, which points to the CU, to the CUs forward
adjacent unit and then move the pointer of the CUs
forward adjacent unit, which points the CU to x . At
last, x will move its backward pointer to the CU
and then move the CUs forward pointer to x . This
transform is just like two adjacent nodes in a doubledirection link exchanging their positions. Process is
shown in Figure 2.

3. Comparison with CA
There is the same number of MUs under the same
state. Suppose, the numbers of MUs and CUs are m
and n. Accordingly, each entrance of the four
directions in the intersection has k lanes.

3.1. Space complexity

The space complexity of CA ( OCA ) is the cells
number created when the simulation processes m+n
units, where each cell is a variable in the
programming design. Suppose, each cell is a square,
which edge is z (meters).The total length from east to
west and south to north are both x meters and the
center squares edge length is y meters as Eq. (4):
OCA(m + n) = kx/ z + k(x y) / z = k(2x y) / z (4)
The space complexity of CD based model is as
shown in Eq. (5):
OCD (m + n) = m + n
(5)

Figure 2. Process of an MU passing a CU

102

For example, an intersection is just like the one in

Figure 1, if z = 0.5, k = 6, x = 80, y = 20, c = 91, and
in simulation time t, m = 35, then the results are in
Eqs. 6-7:
OCA (m + n) = 6 (2 80 20) / 0.5 = 1680 (6)

OCD (m + n) = 91 + 35 = 126

6.00
5.00

Rate

4.00
3.00

Real Times
Rate of
CA/CT
Estimated
Times Rate of
/

2.00

(7)

1.00
0.00

Apparently, if the length of a MU is l, in order to

increase the accuracy, CA has to split the space into
many cells as tiny as possible. In other words, z
should be very small, z < l and the space that CA
needs will be far larger than CD based model.

80

100

32

40

120

180

200

48
56
64
72
Non-motorcycles/Motorcycles

140

160

80

Figure 4. Comparison of time cost rate between CA and

CD when cellular size is 1 meter

3.2. Time complexity

Table 2.

Suppose, the total amount of simulation time is A ,

each simulation step is a, and the time cost of each
variable is t, then the total amount of time in whole
simulation will be the time complexity, as shown in
Eqs. (8)-(10).
A
(8)
T = tO

Computational results when cellular size is

0.5 meter (cellular amount = 2364)

Average number in the

intersection (veh/s)
Non
motorcycle
motorcycle

Time Cost of
Models (s)

Times rate of CA
to CD

CD

CA

Field

Estimated

32

80

39.50

390.50

9.89

11.59

40

100

43.25

391.25

9.05

10.19

48

120

46.50

390.50

8.40

9.09

56

140

51.75

390.75

7.55

8.21

(10)

64

160

56.50

391.50

6.93

7.48

Since OCD is better than OCA, the efficiency

advantage of TCD to TCA is OCD/OCA.

72

180

63.25

392.00

6.20

6.87

80

200

71.75

392.75

5.47

6.35

TCA

(m
TC D

+ n

)=

tk

(2 x

A
a

A
(m + n ) = t (m + n )
a

(9)

4. Simulation example

14.00
12.00

To compare the computational performances of

CA with the proposed CD, an intersection is
employed to simulate the travel time cost of fixed
traffic flow. The computation is divided into two
groups by cellular size. The detailed results are
shown in Tables 1-2 and Figures 4-5.

10.00
Rate 8.00

4.00

Time Cost of
Models (s)

0.00

CA

Field

Estimated

32

80

32.25

180.25

5.59

5.71

40

100

36.75

180.25

4.90

5.02

48

120

41.75

179.75

4.31

4.48

56

140

46.75

180.25

3.86

4.04

64

160

52.50

180.25

3.43

3.68

72

180

59.00

180.00

3.05

3.38

80

200

64.50

180.50

2.80

3.13

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

32

40

48

56

64

72

80

Non-motorcycles/Motorcycles

Figure 5. Comparison of time cost rate between CA and

CD when cellular size is 0.5 meter

Times rate of CA
to CD

CD

Estimate Times
Rate of CA/CD

2.00

Table 1. Computational results when cellular size is 1

meter (cellular amount = 1164)
Average number in the
intersection (veh/s)
Non
Motorcycle
motorcycle

Real Times
Rate of
CA/CD

6.00

From Tables 1-2, Figures 4-5, the computation

time of CD is much less than that of CA whatever the
cellular size is 1 or 0.5 meter. The time rate of CA to
CD varies between 3.13 and 5.71 when cellular size
is 1.0 meter. The rate varies between 6.35 and 11.59
when cellular size is 0.5 meter. Moreover, the time
rate decreases with the increasing number of
motorcycles and non-motorcycles.

103

5. Conclusions
This paper presents a continuous simulation-based
model for mixed traffic flow between motor and
non-motor vehicles in an urban intersection in China.
So far, we proposed a Conflict-point Detection (CD)
model using conflict points information between
motor (e.g. cars, buses, and motorcycles) and
non-motor vehicles (e.g. bicycles and pedestrians)
based
on
a
continuous
micro-simulation
methodology by updating MUs with appropriate SDF
and CNF.
Supported by the analytic and experiment data, the
continuous micro-simulation model is able to model
the complexity of the traffic system with
heterogeneous mixed flows at urban intersections in
real time, and it could be a helpful tool to traffic
analysis for dealing with traffic safety issues and
even giving some helpful evaluation in increasing
intersection capacity efficiently.

Acknowledgements
The authors highly appreciate the National Basic
Research Program of China (No.2006CB705507) and
the National Natural Science Key Foundation of
China (70631001) for all they have done to the
project.

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