Overtaking assistant assessment using traffic simulation

Abstract

This contribution presents the results of a microscopic traffic simulation study of the potential effects of an overtaking assistant for two-lane rural roads. The overtaking assistant is developed to support drivers in judging whether or not an overtaking opportunity can be accepted based on the distance to the next oncoming vehicle. Drivers have been found to consider this to be a difficult part of an overtaking manoeuvre. The assistant's effects on traffic efficiency, driver comfort and road safety have been investigated using traffic simulation. The results indicate that this type of overtaking assistant can provide safety benefits in terms of increased average time-to-collision to the next oncoming vehicle during overtaking manoeuvres. This safety benefit can be achieved without negative consequences for traffic efficiency and driver comfort. A driver assistance system that supports the distance judging part of overtaking manoeuvres can therefore contribute to improved traffic conditions on the two-lane rural roads of the future.

Influence of age, gender and delay on overtaking dynamics

“…Finally, the results have been compared to a previous study [10], which proposed different thresholds for overtaking assistant systems. This work discussed values for an assistant system threshold between 8 s and 14 s. This threshold would be the minimum acceptable gap to perform an overtaking manoeuvre with safety.…”

Could Intelligent Speed Adaptation make overtaking unsafe?

“…Novice drivers may benefit from mandatory ISA if it prevents them from engaging in overtaking behaviours, however it is likely that overtaking is a skill that requires honing through training and reallife experience. In terms of implementation therefore, it may be considered that mandatory ISA should be combined with a system such as that proposed by Hegeman, Tapani and Hoogendoorn (2009). The system they propose would assist drivers in judging the safety of gaps in the oncoming traffic stream, by means of a simple interface.…”

Classification of Driving Direction in Traffic Surveillance Using Magnetometers

“…The second term scales with 1/p 2 compared to the second term in (10). As for the unbiased estimatorf 1 , the distribution off p converges to the normal distributionf p ∼ N (f p , σ 2 fp ) where f p is the mean value as illustrated in (12) (see Proposition 1 in Appendix A).…”

“…From (14) it is seen that the variance is greatly reduced compared to (10). The second term scales with 1/p 2 compared to the second term in (10).…”

“…In a similar setting, the driving direction can be used for detecting vehicles driving in the wrong lane, for example while overtaking. This information in turn can be used in order to warn upcoming traffic about a possible hazard in a cooperative collision warning system [10]. A third application where the driving direction is of utmost importance is the detection of wrong-way drivers.…”