Lattice hydrodynamic modeling of two-lane traffic flow with timid and aggressive driving behavior

In this paper, a new two-lane lattice hydrodynamic traffic flow model is proposed by considering the aggressive or timid characteristics of driver's behavior. The effect of driver's characteristic on the stability of traffic flow is examined through linear stability analysis. It is shown that for both the cases of lane changing or without lane changing the stability region significantly enlarges (reduces) as the proportion of aggressive (timid) drivers increases. To describe the propagation behavior of a density wave near the critical point, nonlinear analysis is conducted and mKdV equation representing kink-antikink soliton is derived. The effect of anticipation parameter with more aggressive (timid) drivers is also investigated and found that it has a positive (negative) effect on the stability of two-lane traffic flow dynamics. Simulation results are found consistent with the theoretical findings which confirm that the driver's characteristics play a significant role in a two-lane traffic system. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.