Speed-spacing dependency on relative speed from the adjacent lane: New insights for car following models

Balaji Ponnu and Benjamin Coifman

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 2015, vol. 82, issue C, 74-90

Abstract: This paper examines the traffic dynamics underlying a recently observed phenomenon, the so called “sympathy of speeds” whereby a high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane seemingly exhibits lower vehicular capacity and lower flow at speeds throughout the congested regime compared to the adjacent general purpose (GP) lanes. Unlike previous studies this paper examines a time-of-day HOV lane. During the non-HOV periods the study lane reverts to a GP lane, thereby providing a control condition for the specific lane and location. This work uses the single vehicle passage (svp) method to group vehicle passages before measuring the traffic state and extends the svp to bin vehicles in the study lane based on the relative speed to the adjacent lane. The extended svp method allows the work to also study the impacts during the non-HOV periods when the study lane serves GP vehicles. This work finds that: (1) during the non-HOV periods the study lane exhibited behavior indistinguishable from the adjacent GP lane. (2) The sympathy of speeds persists throughout the day, even when the study lane serves GP vehicles. (3) The relative speed to the adjacent lane provided a better predictor of behavior than whether or not the HOV restriction is active. In short, the car following behavior that gives rise to the sympathy of speeds is unrelated to the HOV restriction per se, persisting under GP operations as well.

Keywords: Traffic flow theory; Car following; Fundamental relationship; Speed–spacing relationship; Loop detectors; HOV operations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191261515002106
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:transb:v:82:y:2015:i:c:p:74-90

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.trb.2015.09.012

Access Statistics for this article

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological is currently edited by Fred Mannering

More articles in Transportation Research Part B: Methodological from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().