Studies of vehicle lane-changing dynamics and its effect on traffic efficiency, safety and environmental impact

• Published in: Physica A Vol. 467; pp. 41 - 58
• Main Authors: Li, Xiang, Sun, Jian-Qiao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.02.2017
• Subjects: Lane reduction; Moving bottleneck; Traffic fuel efficiency; Traffic safety; Traffic system; Vehicle lane-changing; Traffic system; Vehicle lane-changing; Lane reduction; Moving bottleneck; Traffic fuel efficiency; Traffic safety
• ISSN: 0378-4371; 1873-2119
• DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2016.09.022

Drivers often change lanes on the road to maintain desired speed and to avoid slow vehicles, pedestrians, obstacles and lane closure. Understanding the effect of lane-changing on the traffic is an important topic in designing optimal traffic control systems. This paper presents a comprehensive study of this topic. We review the theory of microscopic dynamic car-following models and the lane-changing models, propose additional lane-changing rules to deal with moving bottleneck and lane reduction, and investigate the effects of lane-changing on the traffic efficiency, traffic safety and fuel consumption as a function of different variables including the distance of the emergency sign ahead of the lane closure, speed limit, traffic density, etc. Extensive simulations of the traffic system have been carried out in different scenarios. A number of important findings of the effect of various factors on the traffic are reported. These findings provide guidance on the traffic management and are important to the designers and engineers of modern highway or inner city roads to achieve high traffic efficiency and safety with minimum environmental impact. •Presented a combined model of vehicle lane-changing with road bottleneck.•Studied effects of vehicle lane-changing on traffic, safety and energy economy.•Discovered situations when vehicle lane-changing can be beneficial.•Studied negative consequences of lane-changing.