Vehicle Overacceleration -- A Fundamental Microscopic Mechanism for Traffic Breakdown Control Using Automated Vehicles and AI
Abstract
This review article addresses a fundamental controversial question in traffic theory: Is the nucleation character of traffic breakdown at a bottleneck governed by vehicle overdeceleration (overbraking) or by discontinuous vehicle acceleration, referred to as vehicle overacceleration. This question is of particular importance in the context of automated vehicles and AI, whose individual dynamic behavior can enable reliable strategies for traffic breakdown control in the future. We show that, in both human-driven and automated traffic flow, traffic breakdown is governed by vehicle overacceleration rather than vehicle overdeceleration. With this objective, in microscopic modeling we separate traffic breakdown caused by overacceleration from traffic instabilities caused by overdeceleration due to braking behavior, while following recent papers [Phys. Rev. E 108, 014302 (2023); 108, 064305 (2023); 112, 034309 (2025)].
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BibTeX
@misc{kerner2026vehicle,
title = {{Vehicle Overacceleration -- A Fundamental Microscopic Mechanism for Traffic Breakdown Control Using Automated Vehicles and AI}},
author = {Boris S. Kerner},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2605.31095},
eprint = {2605.31095},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.31095},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Vehicle Overacceleration -- A Fundamental Microscopic Mechanism for Traffic Breakdown Control Using Automated Vehicles and AI
AU - Boris S. Kerner
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/07
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2605.31095
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.31095
AB - This review article addresses a fundamental controversial question in traffic theory: Is the nucleation character of traffic breakdown at a bottleneck governed by vehicle overdeceleration (overbraking) or by discontinuous vehicle acceleration, referred to as vehicle overacceleration. This question is of particular importance in the context of automated vehicles and AI, whose individual dynamic behavior can enable reliable strategies for traffic breakdown control in the future. We show that, in both human-driven and automated traffic flow, traffic breakdown is governed by vehicle overacceleration rather than vehicle overdeceleration. With this objective, in microscopic modeling we separate traffic breakdown caused by overacceleration from traffic instabilities caused by overdeceleration due to braking behavior, while following recent papers [Phys. Rev. E 108, 014302 (2023); 108, 064305 (2023); 112, 034309 (2025)].
ER -