Modeling driver behavior on urban streets

Traffic flow on straight roads is the most common traffic phenomenon in urban road traffic networks. In this paper, a realistic cellular automaton (CA) model is proposed to investigate driver behavior on urban straight roads based on our field observations. Two types of driver behavior, free and car-following, are simulated. Free driving behavior is modeled by a novel five-stage speeding model (two acceleration stages, one steady stage and two deceleration stages). Car-following processes are simulated by using 1.5-s as the average headway (1.5-s rule), which is observed in local urban networks. Vehicular mechanical restrictions (acceleration and deceleration capabilities) are appropriately reflected by a five-stage speeding model, which has the dual-regimes of acceleration and deceleration. A fine grid (the length of each cell corresponds to 1 m) is used. Our simulation results demonstrate that the introduction of the dual-regimes of acceleration and deceleration, 1.5-s rule and fine grid matches actual driver behavior well on urban straight roads.