A new car-following model accounting for varying road condition

In this paper, we develop a new car-following model with consideration of varying road condition based on the empirical data. Firstly, we explore the effects of road condition on uniform flow from analytical and numerical perspectives. The results indicate that road condition has great influences on uniform flow, i.e., good road condition can enhance the velocity and flow and their increments will increase when road condition becomes better; bad road conditions will reduce the velocity and flow and their reductions will increase when road condition turns worse. Secondly, we study the effects of road conditions on the starting and braking processes. The numerical results show that good road condition will speed up the two processes and that bad road condition will slow down the two processes. Finally, we study the effects of road condition on small perturbation. The numerical results indicate that the stop-and-go phenomena resulted by small perturbation will become more serious when the road condition becomes better.