This paper attempts to introduce an improved difference model that modifies a car-following model, which takes the next-nearest-neighbor interaction into account. The improvement of this modelover the previous one lies in that it performs more realistically in the dynamical motion for small delay time. The traffic behavior of the improved model is investigated with analytic and numerical methods with the finding that the new consideration could further stabilize traffic flow. And some simulation tests verify that the proposed model can demonstrate some complex physical features observed recently in real traffic such as the existence of three phases: free flow, coexisting flow, and jam flow;spontaneous formation of density waves; sudden flow drop in flow-density plane; traffic hysteresis in transition between the free and the coexisting flow. Furthermore, the improved model also predicts that the stable state to relative density in the coexisting flow is insusceptible to noise.