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Yingshuai Li [1; 2; 3] and Jian Lu [1; 2; 3] and Kuisheng Xu [3]

Academic Editor: Cengiz Çinar

1, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Urban ITS, Southeast University, Si Pai Lou #2, Nanjing 210096, China, seu.edu.cn

2, Jiangsu Province Collaborative Innovation Center of Modern Urban Traffic Technologies, Southeast University, Si Pai Lou #2, Nanjing 210096, China, seu.edu.cn

3, School of Transportation, Southeast University, Si Pai Lou #2, Nanjing 210096, China, seu.edu.cn

Received Mar 8, 2017; Accepted Jul 6, 2017

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

1. Introduction

The design and assessment of traffic safety management are difficult in real transportation because of the cost and risks of collecting trajectory data. Therefore, microscopic traffic simulation models are powerful tools extensively used to evaluate traffic safety management policies and to assess their effects. The effectiveness of the results depends on the accuracy of the models. In microscopic traffic simulation models, car following and lane changing are two fundamental components. Compared to car following models, in which vehicles are in the same lane and the driver behavior is only influenced by the lead vehicle, the lane-changing process involves a high level of interaction between the vehicles and is more complex [1–3]. As a result of the importance of the role of microscopic traffic simulation models, how to improve the accuracy of the lane-changing model has attracted wide attention among scholars over the past decades. A large amount of work has been conducted to collect trajectory data [4–9] and formulate models of lane changing [10].

Despite the large number of lane-changing models that has been published, many previous studies have focused on freeways [11] in order to analyze the impact on traffic capacity and traffic safety. Other researchers have been interested in lane-changing behaviors at freeway on-ramp merging areas, where the maneuver is mandatory. Limited research has been reported regarding lane-changing behaviors along arterial streets, where drivers may change lanes more frequently. Only a few researchers have studied lane-changing maneuvers on urban streets [12], and even these models, according to their research reports, do not involve the impacts of driver characteristics because of the scarcity...

    
       
 
 
 

                  
         
         
         
         
       
     
               
 
               
     
               
 
               
     
               
               

    

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