JOURNAL OF TRANSPORTATION

SYSTEMS ENGINEERING AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Volume 10, Issue 1, February 2010
Online English edition of the Chinese language journal
Cite this article as: J Transpn Sys Eng & IT, 2010, 10(1), 3844.

RESEARCH PAPER

A Cellular Automaton Model of Public Transport System

Based on Cruise Control
DING Jianxun, HUANG Haijun*
School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Beijing 100191, China

Abstract: Concerning the public transport system, a new cellular automaton model of traffic is proposed using the cruise control
approach. In the model, the buses would cooperate with other ones while driving and adjust their speeds based on the difference
value between the current headway and the desired one. Numerical simulation results show that the proposed model can reproduce
clustering of the buses along the route. By incorporating a cruise control strategy, the model helps in reducing the undesirable
tendency of clustering by dispersing the buses uniformly along the route, and increasing the average speed and decreasing the
average number of waiting passengers in public transport system. The system performance is then improved with the cruise control
strategy, which has certain applicability and practical significance.
Key Words: urban traffic; cellular automaton model; public transport system; cruise control; hopping probability

Introduction

By far, traffic and transportation problems have attracted

much attention of scholars in various fields[14], in which the
public transit system is nowadays one of the most significant
ingredients in urban traffic[515]. Researchers have proposed
various types of models to reproduce and explain the complex
driving behavior along the bus route, and the representative
works are as follows: Nagatani proposed time-headway
model[57]; furthermore, the car-following model was
presented by Nagatani and Huijberts, respectively[8,9];
additionally, Jiang et al.[11] has introduced the bus capacity, as
well as the number of passengers getting on and off at each
stop into a new bus route model to make it more realistic.
The public transit system is often composed of buses, bus
stops, passengers, and other elements. As a result of their
interaction, the public system would exhibit the complex
behavior. While a bus is delayed by any stochastic disturbance,
this would lead to more passengers accumulating at the next
stop. Therefore, the bus would be delayed further for carrying
larger number of waiting passengers. In the end, buses would
tend to cluster together on the route, and then the cluster
phenomena would form. It has become a hot issue related to
restricting the formation of cluster phenomena. Nagatani

demonstrated that the cluster state would turn to even state

with the increase of bus density, which was similar to the
kinetic phase transition behavior from traffic flow[12]. On the
other hand, regarding to public transit service quality, an
optimization on frequency and mode combination was put
forward in Refs. [13] and [14] to enhance the schedule
efficiency in the public transit system. Furthermore, Tomoeda
et al.[15] incorporated in formation of the number of vehicles
between successive stops and found that a big cluster of
vehicles was divided into small ones, which could be deemed
as an effective traffic control strategy.
Research on vehicles equipped with adaptive cruise control
(ACC) systems has also attracted interest from both physicists
and engineers[16,17], which is an assistance system designed to
detect the presence of a preceding vehicle and measure the
distance as well as the relative speed. Through this sensor
process, it will automatically adjust the vehicle speed to keep
a proper range when a preceding vehicle is detected. Also,
Kesting et al.[17] found that a small amount of ACC equipped
cars and, hence, a marginally increased fee and dynamic
capacity, leads to drastic reduction of traffic congestion.
However, fewer studies have been paid on the buses with
ACC system. Thus, in this study, a new idea from the cruise
control will be incorporated into the public transit system.

Received date: Jun 16, 2009; Revised date: Aug 3, 2009; Accepted date: Aug 20, 2009
*Corresponding author. E-mail: haijunhuang@buaa.edu.cn
Copyright 2010, China Association for Science and Technology. Electronic version published by Elsevier Limited. All rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1016/S1570-6672(09)60021-0

DING Jianxun et al. / J Transpn Sys Eng & IT, 2010, 10(1), 3844

Under a given total number of buses and a desired

space-headway, the bus would reach the desired headway
rather than drive as fast as possible. Numerical simulation
shows that the proposed model can reproduce clustering of
buses along the route.

at an instant time. Under this assumption, the modified form

of H is represented as follows:

Q + Q

min
( Ni , N max ) + 1

Q
H =
min ( Ni , N max ) + 1

Q Q

min ( Ni , N max ) + 1

CA model of public transport system based on

cruise control

In this section, the new CA model for public transit system

incorporated with the cruise control idea is introduced. The
system is deemed as a simple road with periodic boundary
conditions, which is partitioned into L identical cells such that
each cell would be accommodated by at most one bus at a
time step. And, a total of S bus stops are with equal space on
the road. Specially, the case S=L denotes a hail-and-ride
system. At any time step, we assume that a passenger reaches
the system with probability f. Then, this passenger chooses
one of the bus stops with a given probability 1/S. In this study,
the approach from Ref. [15] is used to depict the evolution of
the public transit system. The symbol H is applied to denote
the hopping probability of a bus entering into the cell ahead,
which corresponds to bus velocity in reality, and its values
should stay in the range as H [ 0,1] . The following form of H
is assumed,

H=

Q
min ( N i , N max ) + 1

(1)

where Q is a constant corresponds to the maximum hopping

probability, and the maximum number of passengers that can
get into a bus at any bus stop is Nmax. Moreover, Ni deonotes
the number of passengers waiting at the ith (i=1, 2, , S) bus
stop at the instant of time when a bus stays there. Thus, min(Ni,
Nmax) in Eq. (1) is the number of passengers boarding a bus
which arrives at the bus stop i at time t. Obviously, Eq. (1) is
generated by the common expectation that the time needed for
the passengers to board a bus is proportional to the number of
waiting passengers. The higher value of Ni implies the lower
hopping probability.
With this version of the CA model for public transit system,
the delay in the departure of the buses from crowded bus stops
leads to the tendency of buses to cluster on the route. To
overcome this problem, a traffic control system that exploits
the information on the number of buses in the segments
between successive bus stops was used in Ref. [15], which
helped in reducing the undesirable tendency of clustering by
dispersing the buses more or less uniformly along the route.
However, the feedback information from the previous number
between stops would be deemed too vague to demonstrate the
bus distribution between two successive bus stops. However,
in this study, we introduce a new flexible traffic control
strategy inspired by cruise control idea, which can modify the
hopping probability based on the space headway information

if d n > d

if d n = d

(2)

if d n < d

where dn denotes the headway between the bus n and its

preceding bus with symbol n+1; d is a given parameter that
can be estimated by the length of route and the total number of
buses in the system, and it should be the average number of
the empty cells in the front. The parameter Q is used for
modifying the hopping probability encountering various
situations. As shown in Eq. (2), the case d n > d leads to a
higher hopping probability. Otherwise, case d n < d leads to
a lower hopping probability.
The system, mainly including buses and passengers,
evolves according to the following parallel rules:
(a) Passenger arrival process
Each passenger arrives at the system with probability f, and
he/she picks up bus stop i with probability 1/S. Hence, the
corresponding number of waiting passengers would be
increased by one, i.e. Ni= Ni+1.
(b) Bus movement
Each bus hops to the next cell with probability H calculated
by Eq. (2). If no passengers exist in the next cell, the hopping
probability equals to Q because Ni=0. Else, if passengers exist
in the next cell, the corresponding hopping probability will be
dependent on the difference of the two headways, i.e. dn and
d.
(c) Boarding a bus
For a bus reaching the bus stop cell i, the corresponding
waiting passengers number Ni is updated to max(Ni,Nmax, 0)
to represent the passengers left at the bus stop.
To measure the efficiency of the public transit system
quantitatively, here the average speed <v> of the buses and the
number of the waiting passengers <N> at a bus stop are
introduced; a higher value of <v> and a smaller <N> denote an
efficient public transit system.

Numerical simulation and analysis

In our simulations, the route system is assumed with L=500

cells, and the maximum boarding number of waiting
passengers is Nmax=60. The main variable parameters of our
model are, the number of bus stops (S), the probability of
arrival of passengers (f) and the number of dispatched buses
(m). Here, the density of buses could be easily defined by
=m/L.
In Figs. 15, we plot <v> and <N> against the density of
buses () for several different values of (Q, Q), S and f. Note
that, Figs. 1 and 2 correspond to the public transit system

DING Jianxun et al. / J Transpn Sys Eng & IT, 2010, 10(1), 3844

60

0 .9
f = 0 .3
f = 0 .6
f = 0 .9

0 .8

f = 0 .3
f = 0 .6
f = 0 .9

50

0 .7
40

0 .5

< N>

<v>

0 .6

0 .4

30

20

0 .3
0 .2

0 .2

(b )

10

(a )

0 .1

0 .4

0 .6

0 .8

1
1.0

0 .2

0 .4

(a)

0 .6

0 .8

1
1.0

(b)

Fig. 1 Average speed and average number of waiting passengers in the model are plotted against
the density for parameters Q=0.9, Q=0, S=5 and f=0.3, 0.6, 0.9
35

0 .9
f = 0 .3
f = 0 .6
f = 0 .9

0 .8

f = 0 .3
f = 0 .6
f = 0 .9

30

0 .7
25

20

0 .5

<N>

<v>

0 .6

0 .4

15

0 .3
10

0 .2

(a )

0 .1
0

0 .2

(b )

0 .4

0 .6

0 .8

1
1.0

(a)

0 .2

0 .4

0 .6

0 .8

1
1.0

(b)

Fig. 2 Average speed and average number of waiting passengers in the model are plotted against
the density for parameters Q=0.9, Q=0, S=50 and f=0.3, 0.6, 0.9

imposed no traffic control strategy with the number of bus

stops S=5 and S=50, respectively. As shown in Figs. 1 and 2,
it is easily found as follows:
(i) The previous study on traffic flow, such as NS mode and
its extensions, has proved that velocity is a nonincrease
function of the density[5] if the road is imposed with period
boundary. However, with any given positive number of bus
stops S>0 and for the positive arrival probability f>0, if the
density is lower than some of a threshold density, <v>
increases with the increment of density. Otherwise, at a higher
density region, <v> is a decreasing function of density. At
appropriate density range [0.2, 0.3] , <v> reaches its
maximum. While at the same density, the higher value of f
leads to a lower level of <v>.
(ii) Now, we focus on the relationship between the number
of waiting passengers and the density of buses shown in Figs.
1(b) and 2(b). No matter S and f are set to any values, in the
low-density region, higher density means lower number of

waiting passengers <N>, this is due to the fact that more buses
put into the system have beneficial effects on the waiting
passengers at the bus stops. And extending this density region
to the approximate range of 0.3<<0.8, <N> will maintain a
lower level. At higher density region (>0.8), <N> will rise
with the increase of bus density. Under a given density, <N>
grows with the increasing arrival probability f, which would
make sense in reality.
(iii) For different values of bus stop numbers, the
qualitative relationship from <v> and <N> do not change
significantly. Moreover, at low-density region, a lower value
of f implies fewer passengers arrival at the station, which
leads to a higher level of velocity. Otherwise, more passengers
reach the station and more bus stops are distributed on the
route, which will have greater effects on the velocity, as
shown in Fig. 2.
Figures 3 and 4 correspond to the public transit system
imposed no traffic control strategy (Q=0) and with traffic

DING Jianxun et al. / J Transpn Sys Eng & IT, 2010, 10(1), 3844

1
1.0

35
Q = 0 .9 , Q = 0 .0
Q = 0 .9 , Q = 0 .1
Q = 0 .8 , Q = 0 .1

0 .9

Q = 0 .9 , Q = 0 .0
Q = 0 .9 , Q = 0 .1
Q = 0 .8 , Q = 0 .1

30

0 .8
25

0 .7

20

<N>

<v>

0 .6
0 .5
0 .4
0 .3

10

0 .2

(a )

0 .1
0

15

0 .2

0 .4

(b )

0 .6

0 .8

1.01

0 .2

0 .4

(a)

0 .6

0 .8

1
1.0

(b)

Fig. 3 Pots of <v> and <N> in the model for different combinations of the parameters (Q, Q) and S=50

0.6
0.6

0.8
0.8

(a)

0.7
0.7
0.6
0.6

0.4
0.4

Probability

Probability

Probability

0.5
0.5

=0.28

0.3
0.3

0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
0
0

0 22

0.5
0.5

Probability

0.7
0.7

0.4
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2

d=2.57
44 66

0.1
0.1

10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
14
18
20
22
12
16
24
88 10
Headway
Headway

(a)

0
0

(b)
=0.40
=0.34
=0.28
d=1.50
d=1.94
d=2.57
22 44 66

10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
18
20
88 10
12
14
22
24
Headway 16
Headway

(b)

Fig. 4 Plot of the headway distribution (a: =0.28; b: =0.28, 0.34, 0.40) (S=50, (Q, Q)=(0.8, 0.2))

control strategy (Q=0.1), respectively. As shown in Figs. 3

and 4, some interesting features are observed as follows:
(i) As shown in Fig. 3, at the density region [0, 0.5] ,
with fixed value of parameter Q=0.9, the system with traffic
control strategy (Q=0.1) has better performance of velocity
than the system without traffic control strategy (Q=0). Note
that, the value of <v> would fluctuate with the density, and the
corresponding waiting passengers number would be lower as a
whole with traffic control strategy compared to situation
without traffic control strategy. However, at density range
[0.5, 1.0] , the traffic control strategy would nearly have no
effect on the velocity.
(ii) At the density region [0, 0.5] , with fixed value of
parameter Q=0.9, and at the given density level, a higher
value of Q leads to a higher <v> and a lower <N>, which is
similar to the qualitative results from the system without
traffic control strategy. Furthermore, at a higher density region,
a higher value of Q will not necessarily induce a higher value
of <v> and a lower <N> as shown in Fig. 3.

Here, the velocity fluctuation (Fig. 3) will be explained in

details from the headway distribution point of view. For the
sake of simplicity, only three cases of density 0.28, 0.34, and
0.40 are selected which correspond to the fluctuant velocity
0.831, 0.898, and 0.762, respectively. For the case =0.28
corresponding to the desired headway d = 2.57 , the area
shaded in Fig. 4(a) denotes the cumulative probability for the
proportion of vehicles which have the current headway less
than the desired headway, i.e. p 0.28 ( d < d ) = 0.38 (here, d can
be set as 0, 1, 2). Furthermore, as shown in Fig. 4(b) the
densities =0.28, =0.34, and =0.40 correspond to
p 0.28 ( d < d ) = 0.38 , p 0.34 (d < d ) = 0.20 , and p 0.40 ( d < d ) = 0.45 ,
respectively. p0.34 (d < d ) < p0.28 (d < d ) < p0.40 (d < d ) can be
easily obtained, and it demonstrates that the probability
p(d < d ) dependent on the density is not necessarily to be
monotonic. This feature leads to an explicitly fluctuation in
buses velocities. In addition, in the proposed model, the
desired headway is not necessarily an integer, while the
current headway should be integers, which would be the
origin of the nonmonotonic feature.

DING Jianxun et al. / J Transpn Sys Eng & IT, 2010, 10(1), 3844

0 .9

35
Q = 0 .8 , Q = 0 .1
Q = 0 .8 , Q = 0 .2

0 .8

30
0 .7

25

20

0 .5

<N>

<v>

0 .6

0 .4

15

0 .3

0 .1
0

10

(a )

0 .2

0 .2

0 .4

(b )

Q = 0 .8 , Q = 0 .1
Q = 0 .8 , Q = 0 .2
0 .6

0 .8

1
1.0

0 .2

(a)

0 .4

0 .6

0 .8

1
1.0

(b)

Fig. 5 Pots of <v> and <N> in the model for different values of the parameters Q for Q=0.8 and S=50

tt

xx

tt

xx

(b )

(a )
(a)

(b)

Fig. 6 Space-time plots in the model for =0.28, S=50 (a: (Q, Q)=(0.8, 0) without control strategy; b: (Q, Q)=(0.8, 0.2) with control strategy)

(iii) If the parameter Q is kept fixed, a higher value of Q

implies that the driver would adjust the velocity to a large
extent, which can help the driver maintain at the desired
headway level quickly. As observed in Fig. 5, with the
increase of Q, in a greater density area <v> (<N>) will rise
(decline) with the increase of Q. From this viewpoint, higher
values of Q will obviously enhance the public transit system
performance.
Typical space-time plots of the model with fixed density
=0.28 and total number of buses S=50 under cases of (Q,
Q)=(0.8, 0) and (Q, Q)=(0.8, 0.2) are given in Fig. 6. It
obviously shows that:
(i) The case (Q, Q)=(0.8, 0) (Fig. 6(a)) corresponds to the
model without traffic control strategy, which is a common CA
model for public route system. Under this situation, the buses
have a tendency to cluster, and this phenomenon is quite
similarly observed in other systems, such as the ant-trail
model.
(ii) In contrast, the case (Q, Q)=(0.8, 0.2) (Fig. 6(b))
corresponds to the model with a traffic control strategy. With
introduction of the parameter Q, and implementation of this
cruise control-based traffic control system, the bus driver

could dynamically modify his/her moving speed to obtain a

desired headway level, and then the more even distribution of
bus flow in the route may easily form. With this effect, the
system restricts the size and distribution of the clusters as
shown in Fig. 6(b).

Conclusions

In this study, we have distinguished the objectives of

private cars and public vehicles based on the observation that
buses would obtain operation efficiency and service quality
from the public transit system rather than the high level of
driving velocity. Considering this observation, the public
transit system would present more complex operational
behavior; therefore, a new cellular automaton model of traffic
is proposed using the cruise control approach. Numerical
simulation results show that the model reproduces the
clustering of buses along the route. By incorporating a cruise
control strategy, the model helps in reducing the undesirable
tendency of clustering by dispersing the buses uniformly
along the route, and increasing the average speed and
decreasing the average number of waiting passengers in the

DING Jianxun et al. / J Transpn Sys Eng & IT, 2010, 10(1), 3844

public transport system. The system performance is then

improved with the cruise control strategy, which has certain
applicability and practical significance.

Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the National Basic Research
Program of China (No. 2006CB705503) and the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 70521001 and
70701002).

References
[1]

Kerner B S. The Physics of Traffic: Empirical Freeway Pattern

[9]

for a bus route: existence, stability and bifurcations of

synchronous motions. Physica A, 2002, 308(14): 489517.
[10]

Physical Review E, 1998, 58(2): 14041418.

[11]

systems. Reviews of Modern Physics, 2001, 73(4): 10671141.

[3]

Journal B, 2003, 34(3): 367372.

[12]

Nagatani T. The physics of traffic jams. Reports on Progress in

[13]

Dai L G, Liu Z D. Research on the multi-objective assembled

Physics, 2002, 65(9): 13311386.

optimal model of departing interval on bus dispatch. Journal of
Transportation
[14]

[15]

Engineering

and

Information

Tomoeda A, Nishinari K, Chowdhury D, et al. An

information-based traffic control in a public conveyance

Nagatani T. Bunching and delay in bus-route system with a

system: Reduced clustering and enhanced efficiency. Physica

Nagatani T. Interaction between buses and passengers on a bus

A, 2007, 384(2): 600612.

[16]

Jiang R, Hu M B, Jia B, et al. Phase transition in a mixture of

adaptive cruise control vehicles and manual vehicles. The
European Physical Journal B, 2007, 58(2): 197206.

Nagatani T. Chaos control and schedule of shuttle buses.

Physica A, 2006, 371(2): 683691.

[8]

Systems

traffic. Physics Reports, 2005, 419(1): 164.

route. Physica A, 2001, 296(12): 320330.

[7]

Information

Technology, 2008, 8(5): 6167.

couple of recurrent buses. Physica A, 2001, 63(34): 629639.

[6]

and

Sun C J, Zhou W, Wang Y Q. Scheduling combination and

Transportation

2000, 329(46): 199329.

[5]

Engineering

headway optimization of bus rapid transit. Journal of

Chowdhury D, Santen L, Schadschneider A. Statistical physics

Maerivoet S, Moor B D. Cellular automata models of road

Systems

Technology, 2007, 7(4): 4346.

of vehicular traffic and some related systems. Physics Reports,

[4]

Jiang R, Hu M B, Jia B, et al. Realistic bus route model

considering the capacity of the bus. The European Physical

Springer, 2004.
Helbing D. Traffic and related self-driven many particle

OLoan O J, Evans M R, Cates M E. Jamming transition in a

homogeneous one-dimensional system: The bus route mode.

Features, Engineering Applications, and Theory, German:

[2]

Huijberts H J C. Analysis of a continuous car-following model

[17]

Kesting A, Treiber M, Schnhof M, et al. Jam-avoiding

Nagatani T. Kinetic clustering and jamming transitions in a

adaptive cruise control (ACC) and its impact on traffic

car-following model for bus route. Physica A, 2000, 287(12):

dynamics. Traffic and Granular Flow05, Springer, 2007,

302312.

633643.