Modeling the dynamic cut-in situation

Sultan, B., Brackstone, M., Waterson, B. and Boer, E.R. , Transportation Research Board (2002) Modeling the dynamic cut-in situation. In Proceedings of the 81st Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board. vol. 1803, Transportation Research Board. pp. 45-51 . (doi:10.3141/1803-07).

Abstract

We report on an instrumented vehicle study performed on a motorway in the U.K. to examine the behaviour of drivers when faced with the cut-in of a vehicle lane changing into the space between themselves and the preceding vehicle. Data concerning this activity is in very short supply and may be used for not only formulating models of human response in driving but also for the design and optimisation of driver assistance aids such as Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC).

The cut-in vehicle used was equipped with a rear facing radar unit enabling it to monitor the degree and speed with which drivers attempted to restore their original headway. ‘Cut-ins’ from both directions were examined – moving in from a slower lane (94 events) as well as from a faster lane (72 events). The criticality experienced by the follower vehicle ranged from moderately severe (time to collision around 10s and time gap around 0.35s) to non critical (lead car’s speed at cut in greater than follower speed and time headway beyond steady state values).

Findings have revealed that the ‘pullback’ behaviour, at least over the initial 5- 10 seconds, can be described by a constant ‘pull back’ speed (the rate of decrease of the initial speed), and causative models for this response have been derived using ‘instantaneous’ variables (those that may be calculated on cut-in, such as relative speed and TTC for example) and longer term ‘target’ variables, such as desired headway, the former of which have been found as being most effective in describing behaviour. Lastly, empirical responses have been compared to those that would be produced by ACC systems where we find that a comparatively close match is produced for low values of relative speed

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Contributors

Author: B. Waterson

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