S phase
As explained above, the sense of the term metastable free flow is as follows. Small enough disturbances in metastable free flow decay. However, when a large enough disturbance occurs at the bottleneck, an F → S phase transition does occur. Such a disturbance that initiates the F → S phase transition in metastable free flow at the bottleneck can be called a nucleus for traffic breakdown. In other words, real traffic breakdown (F → S phase transition) at a highway bottleneck exhibits the nucleation nature. Kerner considers the empirical nucleation nature of traffic breakdown (F → S phase transition) at a road bottleneck as the empirical fundamental of traffic and transportation science.