Traveling Wave Profiles for a Follow-the-Leader Model for Traffic Flow with Rough Road Condition

Abstract: We study a Follow-the-Leader (FtL) ODE model for traffic flow with rough road condition, and analyze stationary traveling wave profiles where the solutions of the FtL model trace along, near the jump in the road condition. We derive a discontinuous delay differential equation (DDDE) for these profiles. For various cases, we obtain results on existence, uniqueness and local stability of the profiles. The results here offer an alternative approximation, possibly more realistic than the classical vanishing viscosity approach, to the conservation law with discontinuous flux for traffic flow.