Effect of Surrounding Traffic Characteristics on Lateral Movement Behaviour in Heterogeneous Traffic Conditions

Lateral movements in heterogeneous traffic streams have a significant impact on the characteristics of traffic flow. Lateral movement models, therefore form an important component of mixed traffic micro-simulation tools. Lateral movement maneuvers can be divided into three sequential stages: the motivation to change the current path, the selection of a path (either to the left or right) to change into and the execution of the lateral movement. The first two stages constitute the lateral movement decision and the final stage is associated with the lateral movement performance. Existing lateral movement models emphasize the general car-based decision-making aspects of the task, but generally neglect the detailed modelling of the tactical decisions and execution by vehicle type. The absence of mode-based lateral shift models in the current simulation tools may have a significant impact on simulated traffic flow characteristics and on simulation outputs. This paper analyses the effect of surrounding traffic characteristics on lateral movements of each vehicle type with respect to their tactical decisions and choice making. The analysis is carried out using detailed vehicle trajectory data that was collected in mixed traffic driving conditions using high mounted video cameras. For extracting the trajectories of vehicles, a vanishing-point based camera calibration technique which converts the image coordinates to real world coordinates was made use of. The rigorous statistical tests conducted for the similarity of mode-specific influential variables clearly indicate the existence of significant difference between them giving rise to the need for development of vehicle type dependent models.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AHB45 Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Munigety, Caleb Ronald
  • Mantri, Sruthi
  • Mathew, Tom V
  • Rao, K V Krishna
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2013-1-13 to 2013-1-17
• Date: 2013

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 11p
• Monograph Title: TRB 92nd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Behavior; Decision making; Lane changing; Lateral placement; Traffic flow; Traffic simulation; Travel by vehicle type; Vehicle mix; Vehicle trajectories
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I71: Traffic Theory; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01477168
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 13-3525
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Apr 1 2013 10:50AM