A safety-based approaching behavioural model with various driving characteristics

In order to understand driver's safety-related approaching behaviour during car-following process in more depth, it is necessary to achieve the comprehensive analysis of vehicle-to-vehicle dynamic interactions. Based on qualitative description of driving shaping behaviour associated with driving human factors of influencing driver's car-following behaviour, this paper presents briefly the fundamentals of simulation modelling of driver's safety approaching behaviour in urban traffic operation. The emphasis on our research is placed on the development of a driver's safety approaching behavioural model by considering the variability of following vehicle's speed to the leading vehicle's one and the relative distances among vehicles. Furthermore, we have carried out simulation and analysis of driver's deceleration and acceleration behaviour under different driving situations after identified the key safety-related parameters. Finally the developed model has been validated by using detailed vehicle trajectory data that was collected in naturalistic driving environment. The results show that the safety-based approaching behavioural model could be used to analyze driver's car-following behaviour for driving support and to reveal the essence of traffic flow characteristics at the microscopic level. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.