Driving Behavior in Weaving Maneuver: A Driving Simulator Study

Abstract

In terms of road safety, as well demonstrated in previous studies, the combination of concentrated flows in one specific area might induce more critical maneuvers. In this contest, one of the crucial points for road safety are weaving lanes where different flow can perform different maneuver merging and diverging, producing some conflict points. Bearing in mind this facet, this particular elements, have to be designed with a specific geometry, in order to ensure both maneuver, deceleration for exit and acceleration for entrance in the main flow. The main goal of this paper is the analyze the exchange maneuver of vehicles by means of a real time driving simulator, which allows to evaluate the performance of car users when approaching the exchange of lanes under the same boundary conditions. More specifically, the present paper deals with the extension of previously performed research on this type of element. Therefore, same indicators, same analysis technique and virtual reality scenarios were adopted, in order to establish a comparison between two different conditions of approach to the weaving lane: the first with same speed between the main and the secondary flow, the second one, with a significant speed difference between the flows. The analysis of the maneuvers has been addressed at first under a geometrical point of view and then estimating the related risk parameters in line with the same indicators presented in the previous research (deceleration and risk area evaluated as longitudinal ant transversal distance between vehicles). The main results highlight that, under a geometrical point of view, in different speed condition between the two flows, car users tend to reduce the length of the maneuver, performing the weaving earlier and then occupying a reduced length of the lane in comparison at same speed condition. Under the point of view of risk analysis, results are more significant in terms of traffic flow management rather than in terms of lengths of the lanes. In case of flows with different speed, car users tend to use brakes more often, probably because they are calibrating the speed of the vehicle approaching the weaving lane.