A Traffic Flow Simulation Model Based on the Desired Speed in Merging Sections on Freeways

In order to alleviate traffic congestions and environmental impact, developing a model to evaluate under various geometric and traffic conditions is desirable, which is the objective of this study. The car following model describes following behaviors that drivers follow each other in the traffic stream on only one lane. The lane change model is one of the essential components of any microscopic traffic flow simulation. To reproduce the traffic flow in two or more lanes, lane change model which explores lane change behaviors is represented. We develop a novel traffic simulation model consisting of car following model and lane change model based on the desired speed. Moreover, we propose a novel lane change model based on the driver’s lane change desire known as the psychological constraints and lane change abilities of road known as physical conditions. Numerical simulations are given in this paper to demonstrate the traffic flow simulation model, such as reproducing pinned localized clusters and homogeneous congested traffic and phase transitions by java. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis is conducted. In addition, the relationship between model parameters and input flow variable are discussed. It is shown that when traffic flow rate of mainline is less, the effectiveness of acceleration lane length is good, and vice versa.