Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol.

11, 2015

Analysis of Shock Waves and Speed Peak Propagations in Car-Following

Conditions from Start to Stop within Short Distances
Mitsuru TANAKA a
a
Johnson, Mirmiran & Thompson, Herndon, VA, 20171, USA
a
E-mail: mitsurude@msn.com

Abstract: The car-following platoon consisted of ten vehicles with the leading vehicle initiating
perturbations on a test-track. Vehicle movements varied based on the speed patterns initiated
by the leading vehicle with each data set including a cycle of stop, acceleration, car-following,
deceleration, and complete stop. Shock waves are normally used for stop and go conditions at
a fixed location, however this study focused on observing repeated shock waves created by the
same group of drivers repeatedly. As well as studying the vehicle trajectories in microscopic
level, speed wave propagations among the vehicles were also studied considering asymptotic
stability in the car-following platoon. After carefully reviewing the stop and go vehicle
trajectories, it was found that there is a discrepancy between actual vehicle trajectories and
hypothetical uniform traffic flows in the shock wave theory derived from the macroscopic
traffic model especially in the case of short distances.

Keywords: Car-Following Platoon, Acceleration and Deceleration, Shock Wave, Asymptotic

Stability.

1. INTRODUCTION

There have been dozens of models created and studies performed for the dynamic car-following
behavior over the last few decades. Many of the car-following behaviors were researched
through two or three vehicles with high speed under good traffic flow conditions. At the same
time, acceleration and deceleration of vehicular movements have been studied for estimating
delays and queues created by clustered vehicles with lower speed around signalized
intersections and freeway bottlenecks. Both phenomena with high speed car-following models
and low speed delay models are created by the same human drivers and they both can be
theoretically derived from the same vehicle trajectories. In the condition that a highway is
mildly or more crowded, vehicles tend to be clustered and a platoon is naturally formed with
reduced gaps. The movement of such a car-following platoon with moderate density should be
able explain both the car-following models and delay, queuing and shock wave models.
There have been many studies for car-following platoon behaviors, however most of them
are theoretically simulated vehicles in computer programs using car-following models and
derived results from those hypothetical vehicle movements. This is because obtaining such a
long car-following platoon data with several vehicles was quite difficult. In the past, there have
been only a few empirical car-following data with several followers through field experiments.
The car-following data used for this study was very special, including ten vehicles with stop
and go movements with moderately hard acceleration and deceleration. These data sets were
recorded on a test-track and they are believed to be the most appropriate data in order to analyze
pure traffic flow behaviors without disturbances by surrounding environment.
Throughout the vehicle trajectories including stop, go and car-following movements,
several traffic flow phenomena in a cycle from start to stop conditions were studied in this paper.

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The studies included analyses of shock wave speeds, time-lags, and oscillations of vehicle
parameters propagating from vehicle to vehicle within the entire car-following platoon. First,
shock waves for start and stop were separately calculated in specific groups of the car-following
platoon. The results were compared to other general shock wave speeds from other empirical
studies. Second, oscillatory parameters were observed among the vehicular movements and the
asymptotic stability conditions were reviewed with some assumptions to explain the stability.
This is because the platoon included several car-followers, therefore the mechanism of
propagations of the oscillatory parameters among vehicles in the platoon may be related to the
asymptotic stability. Then, relationship among shock waves and actual vehicle trajectories is
explained and compared to the hypothetical shock wave theory. Finally, this paper presents
findings of the phenomena observed in the actual vehicle trajectories and discusses the
discrepancy with the theory derived from the macroscopic model.

2. CAR-FOLLOWING PLATOON DATA SETS

The car-following platoon data was recorded in a test track of Civil Engineering Research
Institute of Hokkaido, Japan in October 2000. Two different types of data have been recorded
in the experiment; one for car-following conditions without stops and the other for the vehicle
movements from start to stop in short distances. The car-following data portion has been used
for studies of several researchers such as Gurusinghe et al. (2002), Ranjitkar et al. (2003; 2004;
2005; 0), Xin et al. (2007), and Tanaka et al. (2008). Regardless of the data set types, the
trajectories of ten passenger cars equipped with RTK GPS (Real-Time Kinematic GPS)
receivers were recorded. The RTK GPS receivers used in this experiment had 10mm+2ppm
position accuracy and less than 0.2 km/h speed accuracy at every 0.1 second interval.
Gurusinghe et al. (02002) examined the accuracy of the experiment data and confirmed these
data sets are sufficiently accurate. The test track consisted of two 1.2 km straight sections with
two 0.3 km semicircular curves. Only the data on straight sections was used for eliminating
geometry effects by curves. Location and speed of each vehicle were recorded at every 0.1
second interval throughout the experiment.
There were a total of ten drivers in the car-following platoon. In this study, we identified
the ten drivers as D1 through D10. There were two types of driver arrangements in the
experiment. The Type-A arrangement was in the sequence of D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, D8,
D9, and D10 from the first vehicle to the last vehicle in the platoon. Type-B arrangement was
in the sequence of D1, D8, D7, D6, D5, D4, D3, D2, D9, and D10. In both driver arrangements,
D1, D5, D9, and D10 had exactly the same positions. The positions were identified as P1
through P10 from the first vehicle to the last vehicle in the platoon.
The driver of the first vehicle in the platoon, D1, initiated the platoon vehicle movements.
In one data set, the first vehicle started accelerating from stop, traveling with various speeds in
short distances, and decelerating to complete stop. The driver of the first vehicle was directed
to manipulate the vehicle along multiple speed pattern scenarios prepared prior to the
experiment. Based on the first vehicle’s speed trajectory, the speed patterns were named as One
Speed Peak, Two Speed Peaks, Three Speed Peaks, and Flat Top. For example, Two Speed
Peaks means that the first vehicle, P1, generated two speed peaks during one cycle from start to
stop. Figure 1 illustrates the speed patterns schematically. Most of the speed patterns were
roughly designed to accelerate up to 40-50 km/h within 20-30 seconds, travel with speed
fluctuations for 0-50 seconds, and decelerate to complete stop within 5-20 seconds. Generally,
all of the speed patterns were designed to accelerate to around the optimal traffic flow speed
and decelerate to a complete stop after multiple speed fluctuations in short time periods

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3. METHODOLOGY

3.1 Wave Speed Formula for Start and Stop Shock Waves

Since the first vehicle had been ordered to initiate speed fluctuations in a short distance, it was
almost impossible to have multiple steady traffic states in such a vehicle movement cycle from
start to stop. The only one steady traffic state was the stop condition used in the data sets.
Therefore, only shock waves from stop conditions and approaching stop conditions were
focused. In the microscopic traffic theory, the shock wave equations are generally expressed
as following Equation (1).

vB h A  v A h B
wAB  (1)
vB  v A  AB
where wAB denotes speed of shock wave from traffic state A to B, h A and h B indicates average
distance headway in traffic state A and B, vA and vB are the average speed at traffic states A and
B,  AB indicates average time-lag of the reaction by drivers from state A to state B.
The methodology to calculate shock waves from and to a stop condition can be derived
from actual car-following data using Equation (1). Let us assume traffic state S as the stop
condition state with vehicle speed 0, vS = 0, then the traffic state changes to moving state M
after the shock wave wSM arrives. Equation (1) is simplified to following.

hS
wSM  (2)
 SM

The general Equation (2) can be converted to a car-following platoon with n vehicles
and considering the first vehicle is not in the car-following condition. Equation (2) is now
modified to the following equation for a car-following platoon with n vehicles.

n 1

(n  1)h S  x
i  xi 1 
wSM   i 1
(3)
(n  1) SM (n  1) SM

The averaged time lags for n-1 vehicles can be replaced with the sum of the time lags
generated by followers in case of the finite number of platoon lengths.

n 1
(n  1) SM   starti 1 (4)
i 1

where  starti is the time lag for the start shock wave of the driver on ith vehicle for the start delay.
Finally, wSM can be expressed with the actual car-following data.

x1  xn
wSM  n 1
(5)

i 1
start
i 1

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The start shock wave can be calculated using the entire platoon length and summation of the
time lags among all vehicles in the platoon. Similarly, the stop shock wave function can also
be derived with the same way from Equations (1) through (5). Assuming the stop shock wave,
wSM, occurs from the traffic state N with moving traffic to the stop condition of traffic state S,
the following Equation (6) is eventually derived using the time lags to the stop conditions.

x  xn
wNS  n 1
1
(6)

i 1
stop
i 1

where  stopi denotes the time lag for the stop shock wave of the driver on ith vehicle for a
complete stop. Shock waves in the actual car-following platoon data were easily calculated
using those equations. Figure 2(b) illustrates the shock waves and the traffic states S, M, and
N.

3.2 Speed Peak Propagation Waves

There was difficulty of measuring shock waves going over two steady traffic states with high
speeds in these experiments because of the first vehicle’s speed movement patterns within short
traveling distances. As the result, no shock waves were calculated during the short car-
following section, which occurred for a short time period between the first acceleration from
start and the last deceleration to complete stop. Instead of shock wave analysis, oscillations of
vehicle parameters are studied for assessing the asymptotic stability conditions for the middle
portion of the car-following data sets.
As described in many of the car-following theories, followers are supposed to adjust the
acceleration based on the stimuli from its own vehicle and the leading vehicle. Among several
vehicle parameters, speed on each vehicle was selected as the best indicator to monitor the
oscillations and asymptotic stability condition. As seen in Figure 1, the first vehicle in the
platoon, P1, initiated the speed variation, then followers, P2, P3, …, P10 were all supposed to
adjust its own vehicle speed to match the speed of the vehicle located immediately ahead. The
chain reaction was expected to occur from P1 through P10 in sequence with vehicle oscillations
in the platoon. Time lags and amplitude differentials in speed wave propagation from the
leading vehicle to the following vehicle were focused on. In the car-following platoon
consisting of finite number of vehicles, the time lag of the shock wave propagating through the
platoon can be calculated as the summation of the time lag between local speed peaks of two
adjacent vehicles. Assume vi MAX (t i MAX ) as the local maximum speed value on ith vehicle,
 Pr op,MAX i as time lag for the maximum speed peak on ith vehicle from its leading vehicle,
u n and u n MIN are defined as wave propagation speed differences of the local maximum
MAX

and local minimum speed peaks that penetrate through the entire car-following platoon as
shown in Equations (7). They show the propagation speeds of the local speed peaks as function
of the time lags and local speed peak on each vehicle. Top portion of Equation (7) can be
substituted with sum of time lags from the first vehicle to the last vehicle and local peak values
of the first and last vehicles. Equations (8) show alternate versions of Equations (7).

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 v 
n 1
  Pr op, MAX i 1 )  vi
MAX MAX MAX MAX
i 1 (t i (t i )
u n  i 1
MAX
n 1
,

i 1
Pr op, MAX
i 1

 v 
n 1
  Pr op, MIN i 1 )  vi
MIN MIN MIN MIN
i 1 (t i (t i )
u n  i 1
MIN
n 1
(7)

i 1
Pr op, MIN
i 1

n 1
  Pr op, MAX i 1 )  v1
MAX MAX MAX MAX
vn (t1 (t1 )
u n  i 1
MAX
n 1
,

i 1
Pr op, MAX
i 1

n 1
  Pr op, MIN i 1 )  v1
MIN MIN MIN MIN
vn (t1 (t1 )
u n  i 1
MIN
n 1
(8)

i 1
Pr op, MIN
i 1

In many of the actual trajectory data sets, more than one local maximum and/or
minimum existed between the start and the stop. For example, two local maximums and one
local minimum existed on each following vehicle in the Two Peak speed pattern seen in Figure
1. Due to the anticipated movements by drivers, time lags  Pr op,MAX i can be negative. In such
a case, nearby wave peak points were chosen even though a negative time lag. As well as time
lags, the maximum local speed value on i+1th , vi 1 MAX (t   Pr op,MIN i ) can be smaller than the
maximum speed of its immediate leading vehicle, vi MAX (t ) . The top-left portion of Figure 3
schematically explains the wave propagation structures in the time-speed charts. The wave
propagation speeds and amplitudes are calculated from the peak points along the arrows shown
in the figure. Generally, if the asymptotic stability is unstable, speed wave amplitude grows
over propagating through vehicles. When this phenomenon occurs, the differential of the
speeds over vehicles becomes larger. In other words, in such a condition, the speed wave
amplitude on P10 is bigger than the initiated speed wave size of P1. This implies the platoon
is asymptotically unstable. When the speed wave grows over time lags, the stability is defined
as unstable at a glance in this paper.

4. ANALYSIS RESULTS AND CONSIDERATION

Two types of driver arrangements were examined in the experiments. Table 1 shows the
number of data sets for each speed pattern. A total of 46 data sets were analyzed. The lengths
of the data sets varied from 56 seconds to 155 seconds depending on the traveling speed and
speed pattern. As described in the previous paragraphs, three main factors were analyzed for
the vehicular movements in this study; start shock waves, stop shock waves, and speed peak
propagations among car-following vehicles in a cycle from start to stop. Figure 3 schematically
shows the main study areas in vehicle trajectories in this paper. Two types of shock waves were
examined at the beginning and the end of the vehicular cycle of start, travel and stop. In the

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middle traveling portion of vehicle trajectories, speed peak propagation was focused on rather
than shock waves. This is because observing shock waves is difficult due to lack of the steady
traffic states in the middle car-following portion.

4.1 Start and Stop Shock Wave Speeds

First, average time lags of start shock waves from the first vehicle, P1, to the last vehicle, P10,
were examined. It was found that the averages of the time lags through ten vehicles were 11.0
seconds for both Type-A and Type-B arrangements. Summation of the distance headways from
P1 to P10 at the start were 63.5 and 66.1 meters for Type-A and Type-B arrangements as
averages, respectively. Then, start shock wave speeds were computed for each data set. It was
found that the averages of start shock wave propagation speeds were calculated at 21.0 km/hr
for Type-A, 22.1 km/hr for Type-B, and 21.5 km/hr for all types, as seen in Table 2(a).
As well as the start shock waves, stop shock waves were calculated. Average time lags
from P1 to P10 were 14.8 seconds for Type-A and 14.7 seconds for Type-B arrangements.
Summation of the distance headways from the first vehicle to the last vehicle were 63.1 meters
for Type-A and 65.5 meters for Type-B arrangements at the complete stop conditions. The stop
shock wave speed was calculated at 15.7 km/hr for Type-A, 16.4 km/hr for Type-B, and 16.0
km/hr for all types. Table 2(b) summarizes these stop shock wave results.
Reviewing the results in the shock waves seen in Tables 2(a) and 2(b), it is found that
the start shock waves were faster than stop shock waves. This phenomenon has been well
known theory and can be derived from the macroscopic traffic flow model. In addition, the
result values of shock wave speeds well match the ranges of the results from other literature
such as Castillo (02001) and Lu, X.-Y. (0). The speed difference between the stop shock wave
speed and the start shock wave speed was calculated to be approximately 5.5 km/h. The
difference in the time lags between the first vehicle, P1, and the last vehicle, P10, was computed
as 3.7 seconds.

4.2 Speed Peak Propagation

Table 2(c) summarizes the speed peak propagation. The average time lags were 16.4 seconds
for the Local Max, 17.7 seconds for the Local Min, and 16.7 seconds for both speed wave peaks.
It was found that the time lags in speed propagation waves were generally longer than the ones
seen in the start and stop shock waves. The values in the speed peak differences can be both
positive and negative. For example, a negative number in the Local Max row means that the
local maximum of the speed wave became smaller through the speed propagation from P1 to
P10. On the other hand, a negative value in the Local Min means that the local minimum of the
speed peak value became smaller, which means that the speed wave amplitude became larger
towards lower speed side.
The result values show that all the speed wave peaks were slightly moving towards a
lower speed from P1 to P10. Overall, the speed wave peaks on P10 were generally lower than
the ones on P1 by 0.8 km/h. Local maximum peaks did not increase towards a higher speed,
but slightly decreased by 0.2 km/hr from P1 to P10. At the same time, local minimum waves
became larger towards lower speeds with 2.6 km/h. Based on these results, it is said that the
amplitude of speed peaks grew 2.4 km/h propagating from P1 to P10, which indicates the car-
following platoon was asymptotically unstable in regard to the speed peak propagation.
Previous study by Ranjitkar et al (2003) showed that sensitivity factors for all the drivers
in this data all fell within the region of locally stable but asymptotically unstable. The values
were calibrated to the parameters of the stimulus-response system model introduced by

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Chandler et al. (01958). With the moderately hard acceleration and deceleration seen in the
first vehicle’s speed pattern, large speed fluctuations were initially expected in the following
vehicles. However, the speed fluctuations did not expand both higher speed side and lower
speed side but only expanded slightly towards a lower speed. Even with such a slight expansion,
it is still confirmed that asymptotic stability was unstable in the platoon.

4.3 Relationships among Shock Waves and Vehicle Trajectories

Based on the shock wave theory, the different speeds in start shock wave and stop shock wave
indicate that the traffic state after start, traffic state M, and the traffic state before stop, traffic
state N, are different seen in Figure 2(b). However, in most of these data sets, travel time and
distance are too short to have such two different steady traffic states but possibly have only one
dynamic traffic state. The following paragraphs explain a little further the relationship among
shock waves and actual vehicle trajectories under stop and go condition in short distances.
Figures 4(a) and 4(b) show time speed diagram and time space diagram from a typical
example case in one of the data sets used in the analysis. In both figures, thick blue line is the
vehicle trajectory of the first vehicle, P1, and the red thick line shows the last vehicle, P10, in
the platoon. The point A shows where P1 started traveling at time tA, and point B is where the
travel ended at time tB. Similarly, point C is where P10 started at time tC, and point D is where
P10 ended the travel at time tD. Assuming all vehicles follow P1 movement and come to a
complete stop at the end, the following equation can be established for the same distance to
travel on P1 and P10. Note that all four points, A, B, C, and D, intersect with either start shock
wave or stop shock wave.
Referring to the speed diagram in Figure 4(a), the distances traveled by both vehicles
are shown as the areas under the speed wave curves with the thick blue line and the red line,
respectively. Then, having  stopi and  starti as the time lags in stop and start shock waves by
10
the ith vehicle, the time lags from P1 to P10 can be denoted as 
i 2
stop
i for stop shock wave and
10


i 2
start
i for start shock wave.

Now the time paths from A to D via B and another path from A to D via C is
equivalent in Figure 4(a).

10 10
(t B  t A )   stopi   starti  (t D  t C ) (9)
i 2 i 2

Therefore, the travel time difference between P1 and P10 is expressed as:

10 10
(t D  t C )  (t B  t A )   stopi   starti (10)
i 2 i 2

Equation (10) indicates that P10 always travels longer than P1 with the time difference
created between the time lags in stop shock wave and start shock wave. The difference between
the time lags by the two shock wave speeds was approximately 3.7 seconds from P1 to P10
based on Tables 2(a) and 2(b). There were nine following vehicles from P1 to P10 in the platoon,
and then the time lag difference can also be calculated at approximately 0.4 seconds per
following vehicle as an average.

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Only a few second difference in travel times may be a small value in the car-following
platoon, however, the elapsed time for the entire platoon from start to stop was only 60-90
seconds in many of the data sets. Individual vehicle’s travel times were even shorter, ranged
40-70 seconds in such data sets. The travel time difference of 3.7 seconds out of approximately
40 second average travel time might not be ignorable as seen in Figures 4(a) and 4(b). Weather
the travel time difference crated by the two shock waves is ignorable or not depends on the size
and average travel time of the car-following platoon. If the platoon size becomes larger, the
time lag becomes larger. Also, if the average travel time becomes shorter, the ratio of the time
lag to the travel time becomes larger.
If the travel time from start to stop is long enough and the platoon size is short enough,
the travel time difference between the first vehicle and the last vehicle in the car-following
platoon will be ignored. However, if the travel time is relatively short considering the car-
following platoon size, the vehicle trajectory begins to be influenced by the travel time
difference by the two different types of shock waves as mentioned. When travel time increases
the average travel speed naturally decreases. Then, decreased average travel speed possibly
causes lower speed wave peaks. These phenomena can actually be seen in the vehicle trajectory
comparison between P1 and P10 in Figures 4(a) and 4(b). As the result of the comparison
between theoretical shock wave models and actual vehicle trajectories, it can be said that the
uniform traffic flows in the shock wave analysis derived from the macroscopic model may not
be realistic in a short distance with an adequate size of the car-following platoon under stop and
go conditions because the car-following platoon could not have a steady traffic state between
start and stop. (Lines AB and CD could not be parallel in Figure 4(b)). It should be noted that
the use of uniform traffic flow and shock waves in the microscopic traffic analysis should be
cautious in stop and go car-following conditions in short distances.

5. CONCLUSIONS

In this paper, several aspects and characteristics of car-following phenomena with stop and go
conditions were evaluated. First, shock waves were calculated along the actual vehicle
trajectories. The calculated shock wave speeds fell within reasonable ranges of empirical shock
wave speeds from other literature. Second, speed peak propagations were reviewed in the speed
waves of each vehicle in the platoon. It was found that the time lags in speed peak propagations
were longer than both start shock wave time lag and stop shock wave time lag. Third, the
differentials of speed wave amplitudes were examined for propagating through vehicle to
vehicle in the car-following platoon, in order to evaluate asymptotic stability condition. The
outcomes of the speed wave propagation showed slightly increasing oscillations in speed waves
propagating through the vehicle platoon. Although the outcomes of the speed wave
propagations were slightly different than originally expected, asymptotically unstable
conditions were still observed in the speed peak propagations in the car-following platoon. At
last, this paper studied the details of actual vehicle trajectory in order to explain the relationship
with start and stop shock waves. It was found that the uniform traffic flows in the shock wave
analysis derived from the macroscopic model may not be realistic in a short distance with an
adequate size of the car-following platoon with start and stop because the car-following platoon
could not have a steady traffic state between start and stop.
It is concluded that the most important finding in this study was the time lags during shock
waves vary depending on the shock wave type even in the same platoon with the same drivers.
This study demonstrated that the differences among these time lags during shock waves could
cause a serious discrepancy between the real vehicle trajectories and the theoretical uniform
traffic flow used in the shock wave theory in case that a vehicle platoon was driven from start

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to stop within a short distance. The results of this study tells us that we need to be careful about
applying the uniform traffic flow to model the vehicle trajectories from start to stop within short
distances. Vehicle trajectories of the uniform traffic flow may not be appropriate to use for
traffic analyses in such a case.
The findings provide information for the traffic analysis under stop and go car-following
conditions. However, the data sets used in this study are limited. It should be noted that these
data sets were recorded on a test track, therefore the results of this study may be different from
the real field condition. It should be also noted that various vehicle types and drivers were not
included in the data sets. Further study with various data sets will be necessary to support the
findings in this paper.

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Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol.11, 2015

TABLE 1. Speed Patterns and Number of Data Sets

Driver Arrangement
Speed Pattern Total
Type A Type B
One Peak 13 12 25
Two Peaks 9 4 13
Three Peaks 2 0 2
Flat Top 2 4 6
Total 26 20 46

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TABLE 2. Shock Wave and Speed Peak Wave Propagations from P1 to P10

(a) Start Shock Wave

Number of Time Lag Platoon Length Shock Wave Speed

Waves (sec) (m) (km/h)
Type-A 26 11.0 63.5 21.0
Type-B 20 11.0 66.1 22.1
All 46 11.0 64.6 21.5

(b) Stop Shock Wave

Number of Time Lag Platoon Length Shock Wave Speed

Waves (sec) (m) (km/h)
Type-A 26 14.8 63.1 15.7
Type-B 20 14.7 65.5 16.4
All 46 14.7 64.2 16.0

(c) Speed Peak Propagation Wave

Number of Time Lag Speed Peak Difference,

Waves (sec) from P1 to P10, (km/h)
Type-A Local Max. 39 17.5 -3.0
Local Min. 13 15.1 -3.2
All 52 16.9 -3.1
Type-B Local Max. 28 14.9 3.7
Local Min. 8 21.9 -1.6
All 36 16.4 2.5
All Local Max. 67 16.4 -0.2
Local Min. 21 17.7 -2.6
All 88 16.7 -0.8

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Speed (km/h)

Speed (km/h)
Time (sec) Time (sec)

(a) One Peak (b) Two Peaks

Speed (km/h)

Speed (km/h)

Time (sec) Time (sec)

(c) Three Peaks (d) Flat Top

FIGURE 1. The Speed Patterns of the First Vehicle in the Platoon

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Shock Wave, wAB

Actual Vehicle Trajectory

Location ,x

Traffic State B
in Microscopic View

Hypothetical Vehicle Trajectory

from Macroscopic View

Traffic State A

Time, t

(a) Hypothetical and Actual Vehicle Trajectories and Shock Wave

Traffic State M

Start Shock Wave

wSM
Stop Shock Wave
Location ,x

wNS
Traffic State S
Stop Line

Traffic State N

(Sum of Distance Headways)

Time, t
(b) Shock Waves before and after Stop Condition

FIGURE 2. Hypothetical and Actual Vehicle Trajectories and Shock Waves

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Speed

70

P1
2. Stop Shock Wave
60
P2
50 P3
Speed (km/hr)

P4
40
P5
P6
30
P7
20 P8
P9
10
P10

0
0.0 20.0 40.0 60.0 80.0 100.0 120.0 140.0 160.0 180.0
Tim e (sec)

3. Speed Peak Propagation Vehicle Location

Time Space Diagram
1600

1400
P1
1200 P2
Vehicle Location (m)

P3
1000
P4
800 P5

600 P6
P7
400
P8
200 P9
P10
0
0.0 20.0 40.0 60.0 80.0 100.0 120.0 140.0 160.0 180.0
-200
Tim e (sec)

1. Start Shock Wave

FIGURE 3. Shock Waves and Area of Analysis in Vehicle Trajectories

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 Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol.11, 2015
Equivalent Amplitude of Local
The area shows
The area shows travelled distance Maximum Speed Peak
travelled distance
70 by P1 Becomes Smaller due to
by P10 the travel time increase
60
P1
P2
50
P3
Speed (km/hr)

P4
40
P5
P6
30
P7
P8
20
P9

10 P10

A tD
B
0
0.0 tA tC C 20.0 tB 40.0 D 60.0
Travel Time for P1 Tim e (sec)

Travel Time for P10 (Longer than P1)

500
Stop Shock Wave
B
400 P1
P2
Vehicle Location (m)

300 P3
D P4
P5
200
P6
P7
100 P8
A
P9
Start Shock
0 P10
Wave
0.0 20.0 40.0 60.0

-100
tA C tC
Tim e (sec)
tB tD

(a) Time-Speed Diagram (top) (b) Time-Space Diagram (bottom)

FIGURE 4. Examples of Time-Speed Diagram and Time-Spacing Diagram in Stop &

Go Conditions in Short Distances

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