In a road intersection, if there is no car collisions, the cars from section A move

(stream) to A
0

and cars from section B move to B

0

without any problem. This case

represents Eq. 2.8 with X 0; see Fig. 2.2. However, if there is a collision at the
intersection, then cars at section A cannot smoothly move to A
0

or from B to B
.
The time needed to reach smooth trafc (equilibrium conditions) depend on the
type of the collision and the response of the policeman (relaxation time). In this
case X is not zero