Most previous car-following models use only a simple set of kinematic variables, such as relative spacings and speeds, instantaneous speeds, etc., to determine subsequent behavior. Hence, they provide very limited understanding of the variation of following behavior within and across drivers and neglect numerous other causal factors that may be influential to the car-following behavior. In fact, there are numerous other causal factors besides basic kinematics that may influence car-following behavior, such as various human characteristics (e.g., gender, environmental conditions like telephoning, vehicle occupancy (distraction level)), traffic and road characteristics (e.g., type of vehicle, congestion level, and location of driving lane), and environmental characteristics (e.g., time of day and weathercondition). This study identified various causal factors affecting the driving behavior of the following vehicle through appropriate field experiments and investigated the relationships between those factors and the following vehicle’s behavior.
Samenvatting