ABSTRACT: There has been a lack of research that compares driving behavioral differences among different countries using real-world driving data. To address this need, this study used data from two naturalistic driving studies to compare microscopic driving behaviors of sampled drivers in two different countries, with an initial focus on freeway car following. Specifically, data from the Safety Pilot Model Deployment (SPMD) and the Shanghai Naturalistic Driving Study (SH-NDS), were used. From the SPMD dataset, a total of 5,025 freeway car-following events were extracted, involving 58 drivers; from the SHNDS, 13,139 events were extracted, involving 54 drivers. The car-following behavior was compared from three aspects: 1) distribution of behavioral measures, 2) speed gap relationship, and 3) parameter estimates of the intelligent driver model (IDM). Results show that 1) drivers from the SPMD drove much faster on freeways (median speed: 110 km/h) than drivers from the SH-NDS (median speed: 70.37 km/h); 2) the SPMD drivers had larger free-flow speeds compared the SH-NDS drivers; 3) the SPMD and SH-NDS drivers adopted a median time gap of 1.53s and 1.73s, respectively; 4) at lower speeds (< 60 km/h), the SH-NDS drivers had shorter time gaps, while at higher speeds (> 100 km/h), the SPMD drivers had shorter time gaps; and 5) drivers from the SPMD had longer car-following event durations (median: 35s) than drivers from the SH-NDS (median: 25s). The presented study will assist the understanding of the differences in driving behavior between China and the U.S. It will also be helpful for developing better traffic simulation tools and intelligent vehicles.
Xuesong Wang, Meixin Zhu, Yinhai Wang. Differences in Freeway Car Following: Empirical Findings from Naturalistic Driving Studies in Shanghai and Ann Arbor. Transportation Research Board 99th Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., USA, 2020. 1.12-16.