The influence of trucks on traffic flow -: An investigation on the Nagel-Schreckenberg-model

A few years ago Nagel and Schreckenberg introduced a model for traffic flow,(1) which, though quite simple, is able to reproduce the basic properties of traffic. Meanwhile many Variations of the model have been developed, part of them concentrate on introducing an inhomogenous fleet of cars with different maximum velocities. Here we also want to study the effect of introducing a certain fraction of vehicles with a lower maximum velocity ("trucks") to the Nagel-Schreckenberg-model. We give a detailed description of this effect and focus on the time development of the influence of trucks on traffic flow.