How Merging Vehicles Choose and Approach Their Desired Merge Position in Congested Merge Area

摘要

The lane change process is a tactical process. However, the transitions among important tacticalnodes are largely ignored in the existing microscopic lane change models. Prior to the lanechange maneuver, the merging vehicles need to reach the feasible lane change location (thedesired merge position), which is right after the target gap selection. This study explores how themerging vehicle choose and approach the desired merge position in a congested merge area,which may trigger the understanding of the complex lane change behavior and help microscopictraffic flow modeling.This paper reports a fundamental work by classifying the merging vehicles into “targetingoriginal gap” type and “targeting forward gap” type. The statistical analysis results indicate thatthese two types of merging vehicles have different selection behavior of desired merge location.The gap distance between putative leader (PL) and putative follower (PF), the vehicle type of PLand speed difference between merging vehicle and vehicles surrounding it have influence on thedesired merge location selection of merging vehicles.To investigate how the merging vehicles approach their desired merge position, the speedsynchronization and the acceleration behavior of merging vehicles are analyzed in theapproaching process. The results illustrate the acceleration behavior of the “taking forward gap”type merging vehicles should be staged modeled depending on their location. Findings from thisstudy could shed light on the interpretation of complex lane changing.