Car following with an inertia-oriented driving technique: A driving simulator experiment

For many decades, car-following (CF) and congestion models have assumed a basic invariance: drivers’ default driving strategy is to keep the safety distance. The present study questions that Driving Distance (DD) traffic invariance and, therefore, difference between time required accelerate versus decelerate must necessarily determine observed patterns of oscillations. Previous studies shown drivers can adopt alternative CF strategies like Inertia (DI) by following instructions. work aims test effectiveness DI course integrates 4 tutorials practice sessions in standard PC computer designed learn more adaptive behaviors dense traffic. Methods. Sixty-eight were invited follow leading car varied its speed on simulator, then they took computer, finally followed fluctuating leader again simulator. adopted pretest-intervention-posttest design with control group. experimental group full (tutorials simulator practice). had access but not tutorials. Results. All participating DD as mode pre-test, yielding very similar results. But after taking course, showed significantly less accelerations, decelerations, variability than group, greater distance, was dynamically adjusted, spending fuel post-test. A 8 virtual cars adopting space road course.