01660495

Component

A physical system typically consists of nonliving objects whose motion and interaction are subject to physical laws such as Newton’s laws of motion. In contrast, the social system involves living entities such as humans whose behaviors differ widely among the population but generally follow some loosely defined rules mostly in terms of seeking gains and avoiding losses. Straddling the above two systems is the traffic system, which involves both living entities, say drivers and nonliving objects such as vehicles and the road. Hence, traffic flow theory can be perceived as a science that deals with both physical laws and social rules. With this as the pivotal motivation, a novel car-following model is proposed in this paper by incorporating the socio-psychological aspects of drivers into a purely physics based spring-mass-damper mechanical system. The proposed hybrid model when tested for its ability to capture the driving behaviors at a microscopic level and, its conformity with the traffic flow fundamentals behaved pragmatically. Moreover, it was able to capture the effect of vehicle-type heterogeneity on the traffic stream dynamics.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AHB45 Standing Committee on Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics. Alternate title: A Hybrid Sociophysical System–Based Driver Behavioral Model for Representing Traffic Dynamics

18-06041

English

7p

2018

Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Aggression; Automobile drivers; Behavior; Car following; Macroscopic traffic flow; Mechanics; Microscopic traffic flow; Psychological aspects; Social factors; Stability analysis; Traffic flow theory; Traffic models; Vehicle mix

Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2018 Paper #18-06041

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 8 2018 11:33AM