  Cellular automaton (CA) approach is an important theoretical framework for
studying complex system behavior and has been widely applied in various
research field. CA traffic flow models have the advantage of flexible evolution
rules and high computation efficiency. Therefore, CA develops very quickly and
has been widely applied in transportation field. In recent two decades, traffic
flow study quickly developed, among which "synchronized flow" is perhaps one of
the most important concepts and findings. Many new CA models have been proposed
in this direction. This paper makes a review of development of CA models,
concerning their ability to reproduce synchronized flow as well as traffic
breakdown from free flow to synchronized flow. Finally, future directions have
been discussed.
