Fuel consumption and exhaust emissions under varying road condition considering effects of vehicles on other lanes

In order to investigate the collaborative physical effect between the micro vehicle system and the macro road transportation system, we propose a car-following model to describe the impacts of adjacent lanes on the driving behavior in the current lane under varying road condition at the macro level, and extend the model to explore the fuel consumption and exhaust emissions corresponding to the micro level. Numerical results at macro level indicate that during the starting and the braking processes, the interruption of vehicles on adjacent lanes can cause velocity fluctuation on the current lane; under small perturbation situations this influence becomes smaller (greater) when the road condition turns better (worse). The micro results involving fuel consumption and emissions show that, during the starting process the interruption from adjacent lanes can reduce the total fuel consumption and the total emissions on the current lane, but under small perturbation situations the trend is opposite; during the braking process, furthermore, the interruption has more complex influences on the total fuel consumption and exhaust emissions on the current lane.