  Measurements on real traffic have revealed the existence of metastable states
with very high flow. Such states have not been observed in the
Nagel-Schreckenberg (NaSch) model which is the basic cellular automaton for the
description of traffic. Here we propose a simple generalization of the NaSch
model by introducing a velocity-dependent randomization. We investigate a
special case which belongs to the so-called slow-to-start rules. It is shown
that this model exhibits metastable states, thus sheding some light on the
prerequisites for the occurance of hysteresis effects in the flow-density
relation.
