Using the methods originally developed for Random Matrix Theory we derive an exact mathematical formula for number variance (introduced in [4]) describing a rigidity of particle ensembles with power-law repulsion. The resulting relation is consequently compared with the relevant statistics of the single-vehicle data measured on the Dutch freeway A9. The detected value of an inverse temperature, which can be identified as a coefficient of a mental strain of car drivers, is then discussed in detail with the respect to the traffic density and flow.