Car-Following Behavior Analysis from Microscopic Trajectory Data

Abstract

The development of accurate and robust models in the field of car following has suffered greatly from the lack of appropriate microscopic data. Because of this lack, little is known about differences in car-following behavior between individual driver–vehicle combinations. This paper studies the car-following behaviors of individual drivers by making use of vehicle trajectory data extracted from high-resolution digital images collected at a high frequency from a helicopter. The analysis was performed by estimating the parameters of different specifications of the well-known Gazis–Herman–Rothery car-following rule for individual drivers. This analysis showed that a relation between the stimuli and the response could be established in 80% of the cases. The main contribution of this paper is that considerable differences between the car-following behaviors of individual drivers could be identified. These differences are expressed as different optimal parameter values for the reaction time and the sensitivity, as well as different car-following models that appear to be optimal on the basis of the data for individual drivers.

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