Influence of Driving Behaviors on the Stability in Car Following

Car following is the most common phenomenon in single-lane traffic. However, the propagation of the small perturbation of the velocity of the leading car will affect traffic flow. Driving behaviors play an important role in the determination of the qualitative dynamics of vehicles in the car-following process. Under different traffic environments, driving behaviors depend on the level of perceived risk, acceleration and deceleration habits, and reaction characteristics of the driver. The desired safety margin (DSM) model can directly describe the driving behaviors in the car-following process by using the parameters of the risk perception of drivers, sensitivity coefficient of acceleration and deceleration, and response time. In this paper, we investigate the influence of the accepted risk level, response time, and sensitivity factor on the traffic flow via the DSM model. The stability criterion of the simplified DSM model is derived via linear stability theory. Analytical results indicate that a backward propagating of perturbation would enlarge or shrink with the change of three driving behavior parameters of accepted risk level, sensitivity coefficient of acceleration or deceleration, and response time. Results show that careful driving can improve the stability of traffic flow and that system stability can be maintained by adjusting the acceleration and deceleration control parameters, increasing DSM, or decreasing response time for the adaptive cruise control or vehicular platoon control system. The results can provide reasonable values of driving behavior parameters for the stability of the primitive DSM model using the simplified DSM model. Furthermore, we analyze the influence of interval DSMs, and the acceleration and deceleration sensitivity of the primitive DSM model on the stability of traffic flow through numerical simulations. Results imply that the lower limit of the DSM influences traffic flow more significantly than the upper limit of the DSM. Moreover, the increase in deceleration sensitivity has a more important influence on the stability of traffic flow than the increase in acceleration sensitivity. The numerical simulation results are in good agreement with the analytical results and the relevant experimental results of previous studies.