Development of a Microscopic Driver-Vehicle Model Using a Control Theory Approach

Abstract

It is proposed a new microscopic driver-vehicle model derived from a set of assumptions on driver’s behaviour through a control systems theory approach. It is assumed driver’s actions, in the throttle-brake pedal set, result from a cascade control structure regulating both velocity and distance to the preceding vehicle. The goal is to develop a model for each driver-vehicle pair, where each parameter has a logical meaning and a methodology for selecting its value, while maintaining them computationally simple. This attribute allows simulating a large collection of driver-vehicle pairs with a set of specific characteristics. A methodology to select the model parameters is presented. Moreover, this paper presents a steady-state analysis of the microscopic model to represent the corresponding traffic flow fundamental diagram according to the selected probability distribution for the models’ parameters.

Key Words:

• Microscopic approach
• driver-vehicle model
• control systems
• flowdensity diagram

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maria Marques

Maria Marques developed her M.Sc. degree in Electrical and Computers Engineering in the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal, in the area of simulation of distributed systems aiming traffic control (FCT/UNL, 2005). She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the same institution in the area of decision support for life-cycle management. Since February 2003, she has been working as a researcher at UNINOVA, participating in several international projects, both research and industrial oriented, with special focus on the areas of decision support, reasoning methods and control systems.

Rui Neves-Silva

Rui Neves-Silva developed his Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computers Engineering in the Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal, in the area of modelling and control of industrial plants. He has been senior researcher at UNINOVA since January 2001 and researcher at INESC-ID Lisboa since September 1991. He is an assistant professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (FCT/UNL). He is experienced in 17 national and European projects in the scientific area of control and decision engineering, has published more than 50 publications in international scientific journals and peer reviewed international conferences relevant to the control and decision engineering area.