A car-following model with the anticipation effect of potential lane changing

Abstract

In this paper, a new car-following model is presented, taking into account the anticipation of potential lane changing by the leading vehicle. The stability condition of the model is obtained by using the linear stability theory. The modified Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation is constructed and solved, and three types of traffic flow in the headway-sensitivity space, namely stable, metastable and unstable ones, are classified. Both the analytical and simulation results show that anxiety about lane changing does indeed have an influence on driving behavior and that a consideration of lane changing probability in the car-following model could stabilize traffic flows. The quantitative relationship between stability improvement and lane changing probability is also investigated. © 2008 Springer-Verlag.