Rule 184 Cellular Automaton and the Nagel-Schreckenberg Model as the Foundation of Traffic Flow Simulation

Rule 184 Cellular Automaton is a discrete, cell-based model used to study dynamic behaviors in complex systems. This model is commonly applied in traffic flow simulation to analyze vehicle movement on roadways, where each cell represents a road segment that can be either occupied by a vehicle or empty. The transition rules typically involve vehicles moving forward if the next cell is empty, creating emergent traffic wave patterns. Meanwhile, the Nagel-Schreckenberg (NaSch) model serves as a fundamental computational framework for traffic flow analysis, specializing in studying traffic mobility and congestion phenomena. The simulation methodology incorporates driver behavior assumptions through four sequential steps: acceleration, deceleration based on preceding vehicles, randomization to account for driver uncertainties, and vehicle movement. Both models feature extensive applications in transportation research, with implementations often involving array manipulations for cell states and loop structures for time-step evolution in programming languages like Python or MATLAB.