Abstract
The occurrence of adverse weather exacerbates traffic flow conditions, often leading to severe traffic congestions. Many studies have been conducted based on field-collected data to obtain the effects of weather on traffic flow characteristics. However, there is a limitation for filed data-based studies, in that weather conditions and traffic conditions are both noncontrollable and nonrepeatable, making it difficult to comprehensively assess the influence of weather conditions, especially the rare extreme weather conditions, on traffic flow characteristics. This paper proposes to assess these effects with the combination of driving simulator and traffic simulation. A driving simulator can collect driving behavior by conducting weather-related driving simulation experiments, while a microscopic traffic simulation program can evaluate the changes in traffic flow characteristics by inputting driving behavior parameters coming from the driving simulator. The proposed method can overcome the limitation of the field data-based approach. In this paper, the structure of the assessment platform is introduced at first. Then a verification experiment is conducted to measure the influences of adverse weather conditions on traffic flow characteristics. The verification experiment results show that the influences of adverse weather on traffic flow characteristics have consistent tendencies with outcomes from previous research and demonstrate that the method is practicable for the analysis of the influence of weather on traffic flow characteristics. This paper provides a practical way to analyze the influence of weather on traffic flow from driving behavior’s point of view.
Highlights
In recent years, the number of vehicles in big cities has been increasing rapidly in China
The impacts of weather focusing on the root of the problem are assessed, i.e., driving behavior change in adverse weather by innovatively combining a driving simulator and traffic simulation to overcome the limitations of the field data-based approach
In VISSIM, simulation road net that is consistent with that in the driving simulator is drawn and traffic simulation parameters are configured to support the running of traffic simulation and the output of traffic flow characteristics
Summary
The number of vehicles in big cities has been increasing rapidly in China. Many studies have focused on the impacts of weather on traffic flow characteristics such as average speed, traffic volume and road capacity [4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. The impacts of weather focusing on the root of the problem are assessed, i.e., driving behavior change in adverse weather by innovatively combining a driving simulator and traffic simulation to overcome the limitations of the field data-based approach. By utilizing the driving simulator-based method, Brooks, Crisler, et al [14] claimed that vehicle speeds did not slow down significantly until a dramatic reduction in visible distance caused by fog. Li, et al [15] designed three scenarios with different risk levels in a driving simulator to investigate the effects of fog on drivers’ speed control. Bcaonthbtehesrtuesdeiaerdchuosfinthgetihmispapcrtospoofswedeaathpeprraonadchthteoehffaevctes aofdoetheper afancatloyrssisonfrtormaffitchfleoawngcalen obfe sdtruivdinedg ubseihnagvtihoris.proposed approach to have a deep analysis from the angle of driving behaviors
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