Collective effects in traffic on bi-directional ant trails

[摘要] Motivated by recent experimental work of Burd et al., we propose a model of bi-directional ant traffic on pre-existing ant trails. It captures in a simple way some of the generic collective features of movements of real ants on a trail. Analysing this model, we demonstrate that there are crucial qualitative differences between vehicular- and ant-traffics. In particular, we predict some unusual features of the flow rate that can be tested experimentally. As in the uni-directional model a non-monotonic density-dependence of the average velocity can be observed in certain parameter regimes. As a consequence of the interaction between oppositely moving ants the flow rate can become approximately constant over some density interval. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

[发布日期] 2004-11-21

[关键词] cellular automata;ant trails;collective effects;computer simulations