  In this paper, a cellular automaton model of vehicular traffic in
Manhattan-like urban system is proposed. In this model, the origin-destination
trips and traffic lights have been considered. The system exhibits three
different states, i.e., moving state, saturation state and global deadlock
state. With a grid coarsening method, vehicle distribution in the moving state
and the saturation state has been studied. Interesting structures (e.g.,
windmill-like one, T-shirt-like one, Y-like one) have been revealed. A
metastability of the system is observed in the transition from saturation state
to global deadlock state. The effect of advanced traveller information system
(ATIS), the traffic light period, and the traffic light switch strategy have
also been investigated.
