Understanding impacts of aggressive driving on freeway safety and mobility: A multi-agent driving simulation approach

Abstract

Considering that aggressive driving behavior significantly contributes to crash occurrences, it is necessary to establish appropriate safety strategies for managing and suppressing the risk factor of aggressive driving behavior. Understanding the characteristics of aggressive driving and its impact on traffic stream is fundamental to developing safety countermeasures. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the crash potential under the various aggressive driving events on freeways based on both driving simulators and microscopic traffic simulation model, VISSIM. A novel feature of this study is the application of a multi-agent driving simulation facility, where two driving simulators are connected to establish a network that can render synchronized driving in the same space. The results of the driving simulation were used for modifying the driving behavior parameters of VISSIM. This approach will enable to effectively represent the driving behavior of aggressive drivers and normal drivers under various aggressive driving cases. Study results indicated that aggressive driving deteriorated not only the network safety performance represented by the crash potential index (CPI) but also the mobility represented by travel speeds. The outcomes of this study would be useful in developing well-informed countermeasures and supporting policy making-activities to prevent aggressive driving events.