This work unveils the influence of vehicular lane change manoeuvres on oscillations in real freeway traffic. Measurements made upstream of bottlenecks reveal that oscillations formed in individual lanes when drivers squeezed their way in from neighbouring lanes. Once oscillations had formed, moreover, lane changing caused the oscillations to at times grow in amplitude as they propagated upstream through queues. It was found that on multi-lane freeways where lane changing abounds, these manoeuvres seemingly exertgreater influence on the formation and growth of oscillations than do driver interactions that spontaneously arise in single-lane traffic. This is notable in the light of the many attempts to explain oscillations as strictly a car-following phenomenon; and the findings motivate the need for theories of multi-lane traffic that describe lane-changing in conjunction withcar-following. For the covering abstract see ITRD E144727. Reprinted withpermission of Elsevier.
Samenvatting