Driving Behaviour: Models and Challenges

Abstract

Driving behaviour models capture drivers’ tactical manoeuvring decisions in different traffic conditions. These models are essential to microscopic traffic simulation systems. The paper reviews the state‐of‐the‐art in the main areas of driving behaviour research: acceleration, lane changing and gap acceptance. Overall, the main limitation of current models is that in many cases they do not adequately capture the sophistication of drivers: they do not capture the interdependencies among the decisions made by the same drivers over time and across decision dimensions; they represent instantaneous decision‐making, which fails to capture drivers’ planning and anticipation capabilities; and only capture myopic considerations that do not account for extended driving goals and considerations. Furthermore, most models proposed in the literature were not estimated rigorously. In many cases, this is due to the limited availability of detailed trajectory data, which are required for estimation. Hence, data availability poses a significant obstacle to the advancement of driving behaviour modelling.

Acknowledgement

The author is a Horev Fellow supported by the Taub and Shalom Foundations. This work was partially supported by the European Commission under Marie Curie Grant No. 028526. The author would like to thank the anonymous referees for comments that helped improve the quality of this paper.