Lane-Changing Model with Explicit Target Lane Choice

Abstract

The lane-changing model is an important component of microscopic traffic simulation tools. With the increasing popularity of these tools, a number of lane-changing models have been proposed and implemented in various simulators in recent years. Most of these models are based on the assumption that drivers evaluate the current and adjacent lanes and choose a direction of change (or no change) on the basis of the utilities of these lanes only. The lane choice set is therefore dictated by the current position of the vehicle and in multilane facilities would be restricted to a subset of the available lanes. Thus, existing models lack an explicit tactical choice of a target lane and therefore cannot explain a sequence of lane changes from the current lane to this lane. In this paper, a generalized lane-changing model that explicitly incorporates the choice of target lane is presented. The target lane is the lane that the driver perceives to be the best when a wide range of factors and goals are taken into account. The immediate direction in which a driver changes lanes is determined by the target lane choice. All parameters of the model were jointly estimated with detailed vehicle trajectory data. The model was validated and compared with an existing lane-changing model with the use of a microscopic traffic simulator. The results indicate that the proposed model performs significantly better than the previous model.