Dynamic Characteristics Of Lane-changing Behavior And Effect On The Vehicular Flow

With the rapid development of social economy currently, the motorization level continues to increase,which makes the available space of vehicles’ operation more limited. Serious traffic congestion and frequent traffic accidents reveal the importance of studying traffic problems of road system. Car-following behavior and lane-changing behavior are two basic operational behavior of vehicles, while the operating environment of lane change is more complex and it involves many traffic factors; furthermore, the lane-changing implement easily leads to traffic conflicts and traffic accidents, which reduces the safety of road system. Therefore, it is necessary to clear the lane-changing dynamic characteristics of road system and the influencing mechanism on vehicular flow.In this paper, the lane-changing reasons and basic forms were firstly described, and the influencing factors were analyzed from four aspects including the drivers’ characteristics, vehicles’ factors, roads’ factors and traffic conditions; by introducing the driver-vehicle agent, the lane-changing modes were divided, the decision-making optimization process of the target vehicle and the rear vehicle in the target lane was investigated based on the gap acceptance model and the lane-changing interactive model was established with the minimum safe distance; the dynamic lane-changing implement process was analyzed, and the probability model of lane-changing decision was developed according to the relationship of each stage, the parameters of which were calibrated by the method of maximum likelihood estimation; finally, the influencing mechanism of lane changing on the vehicular flow operation was revealed, and the relationship between the lane-changing time and traffic volume was made the mathematical statistics,the comparison of indexes including lane-changing frequency and travel delay with the real data was conducted to verify the model. Research results will provide theoretical basis and technical support for the transportation management and control, traffic simulation and the adaptive cruise control of vehicles.