Analysis of the Relationship between Vehicle Behaviors of Changing Lane and Volume of Traffic under Different Operating Ratios of Autonomous Vehicles

Abstract

The lane-changing behavior is one of the important causes in traffic accident in congest traffic, and many behaviors of change lane affect volume of traffic. When autonomous driving vehicles are running on road with human-driven vehicles, the effects of change lane on traffic are different. In all human-driven vehicles traffic, the vehicle behaviors of changing lane are more competent. When autonomous driving vehicles are running in mixed traffic, the behaviors of changing lane decrease and the volume of traffic increases. However, a few studies have involved the relationship between traffic volume and lane-change behavior. In a sense, the study of this relationship is good for understanding the operation mechanism of mixed traffic. In this paper, we proposed the linear regression model to describe the relationship between traffic volume and lane-change behavior. The model can be used to establish the basic graph model. Here, we used empirical, simulation, and data-driven methods to obtain data and established a multiple linear regression model. First, we empirically study the continuous traffic with all human-driven vehicles. Then, the corresponding simulation model is established, and the availability of the simulation model is proved by data comparison with empirical study. Finally, 9 rounds of simulation experiments are carried out with the established simulation model. The number of autonomous driving vehicles in each round of simulation experiment increases by 10%. Then, we analyze the data of the behaviors of changing lane and the volume of traffic from simulation experiments. The following was found: (1) an increase in autonomous driving vehicle leads to an increase in traffic volume and a slight decrease in lane changing behaviors; (2) the influence of different proportions of autonomous vehicles on the traffic volume of lanes at different locations is slightly different; and (3) the relationships among the rate of vehicles entering lane, the rate of vehicles exiting lane together, and the volume of traffic show obvious linear relationships with the increase in autonomous driving vehicles. We used multiple linear regression models to carry out description, and the obtained parameter value intervals are close under different operating ratios of autonomous vehicles. To sum up, on multilane roads, especially 4-lane urban expressways, autonomous driving vehicles join in the traffic, which can effectively increase the volume of traffic of each lane while reducing vehicle behaviors of changing lane. The relationships between vehicle behaviors of changing lane and the traffic volume in mixed traffic show linear relationships with the increase in autonomous driving vehicles. In the future, we will further study whether this relationship model can be used in discrete traffic flow.