Microscopic modelling of area-based heterogeneous traffic flow: Area selection and vehicle movement

摘要

The area-based (i.e., non-lane based) heterogeneous traffic (as in developing countries) has significant differences from the lane-based homogeneous traffic (as in developed countries). In area-based traffic, drivers generally ignore the lane markings and perceive the entire road space while progressing longitudinally. The traditional car-following and lane changing models are not directly applicable to model such driving behaviour.This research aims to microscopically model the dynamics of the subject vehicle in area-based traffic flow. The modelling is conducted in two steps: area selection, and vehicle movement. In step 1, a multinomial logit (MNL) model is considered for selecting the area-based movement direction of the subject vehicle. The choice space of the subject vehicle is divided into numbers of realistic radial cones considering the possible moving directions of the subject vehicle in the next simulation time step. These radial cones form the alternatives for the decision of the subject vehicle. The attributes of the alternatives are defined in terms of angular deviation from the direction of the flow, spacing and relative speed. This model is calibrated and validated for both cars and motorcycles using real trajectory data, and the results demonstrate the good performance of the model. In step-2, a modified intelligent driving model (MIDM) is proposed to simulate the next position of the subject vehicle (along the selected direction as the outcome of the model in step-1). The parameters of the MIDM model are calibrated using real data for cars and motorcycles.The deterministic parameters for MNL model and the empirical distribution of the MIDM model parameters are utilized to stochastically simulate vehicle trajectories with the initial and boundary conditions determined by the real dataset. The comparison of the macroscopic properties between the simulated and real datasets provides promising results for the simulation applicability of the proposed modelling framework.