Identification of evasive manoeuvres in traffic interactions and conflicts

Abstract

The study presents a simple and easy to implement method for detection of the evasive action start in traffic interactions. The method is based on comparison of the studied trajectory with a reference set of ‘unhindered’ trajectories, interpreting the start of evasive action as the moment when no more similarities can be found. The suggested algorithm performs well for primary interactions when road users arrive in an unhindered state. It fails, however, in case of secondary interactions. Explorative application of the method on a large dataset of normal and conflict traffic situations concludes that traffic conflicts occur more frequently in secondary interactions, presumably due to higher cognitive load on the involved road users. Despite the limitations, the method can be used both for the safety studies based on traffic conflicts and for more general quantification and visualisation of the road user behaviour.