Car-following behavioural adaptation when driving next to automated vehicles on a dedicated lane on motorways: A driving simulator study in the Netherlands

Mathijs Schoenmakers, Dujuan Yang, Haneen Farah

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

27 Citations (Scopus)
32 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Automated vehicles (AVs) are expected to improve traffic flow efficiency and safety. The deployment of AVs on motorways is expected to be the first step in their implementation. One of the main concerns is how human drivers will interact with AVs. Dedicating specific lanes to AVs have been suggested as a possible solution. However, there is still a lack of evidence-based research on the consequence of dedicated lanes for AVs on human drivers’ behavior. To bridge this research gap, a driving simulator experiment was conducted to investigate the behavior of human drivers exposed to different road design configurations of dedicated lanes on motorways. The experiment sample consisted of 34 (13 female) licensed drivers in the age range of 20–30. A repeated measures ANOVA was applied, which revealed that the type of separation between the dedicated lane and the other lanes has a significant influence on the behavior of human drivers driving in the proximity of AV platoons. Human drivers maintained a significantly lower time headway (THW) when driving in the proximity of a continuous access dedicated lane as compared to a limited-access dedicated lane with a guardrail separation for AV platoons. A similar result was found for the limited-access dedicated lane in comparison to the limited-access dedicated lane with guardrail separation. Moreover, the results regarding the empirical relationships between THW and sociodemographic variables indicate a significant THW difference between males and females as well as a significant inverse relationship between THW and the years of driving experience.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)119-129
Number of pages11
JournalTransportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour
Volume78
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Keywords

  • Automated vehicles
  • Behavioral adaptation
  • Dedicated lanes
  • Driving simulator
  • Road design

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