Abstract
Traffic safety studies need more than what the current micro-simulation models can provide, as they presume that all drivers exhibit safe behaviors. Therefore, existing micro-simulation models are inadequate to evaluate the safety impacts of managed motorway systems such as Variable Speed Limits. All microscopic traffic simulation packages include a core car-following model. This paper highlights the limitations of the existing car-following models to emulate driver behaviour for safety study purposes. It also compares the capabilities of the mainstream car-following models, modelling driver behaviour with precise parameters such as headways and time-to-collisions. The comparison evaluates the robustness of each car-following model for safety metric reproductions. A new car-following model, based on the personal space concept and fish school model is proposed to simulate more accurate traffic metrics. This new model is capable of reflecting changes in the headway distribution after imposing the speed limit from variable speed limit (VSL) systems. This model can also emulate different traffic states and can be easily calibrated. These research findings facilitate assessing and predicting intelligent transportation systems effects on motorways, using microscopic simulation.
Highlights
The car-following (CF) phenomenon within traffic flow has been studied extensively for the past 60 years
The Space Based Model (SBM) is easy to calibrate for safety metrics because of its simple structure
After testing the SBM for a single following vehicle, it is necessary to test the ability of the SBM to create the traffic flow
Summary
The car-following (CF) phenomenon within traffic flow has been studied extensively for the past 60 years. 2021, 1 speed and acceleration in individual levels, while Panwai and Dia [9] compared CF models within different commercial simulation models against a spacing prediction error Despite such studies, there is a lack of studies that have compared the CF models against more precise safety-related parameters such as individual short headways and time-to-collision (TTC) events. This research develops and validates a new CF model that is based on the concept of driver-vehicle personal space and fish schools This enables traffic analysts to be more confident in the use of microscopic simulation models to evaluate the impact of different traffic scenarios in terms of their safety improvement impact. The significance and implications of the SBM are given in the Section 8
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