Analyzing Microscopic Behavior: Driver Mandatory Lane Change Behavior on a Multilane Freeway 6. Performing Organization Code 7. Author/s

UTC R157 Disclaimer The contents of this report reflect the views of the author(s), who are responsible for the facts and the accuracy of information presented herein. This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of s gaps were estimated using the maximum likelihood estimation method. This report utilizes lected by the NGSIM project. Abstract The driver gap acceptance and rejection behavior during mandatory lane changes on a multilane freeway are analyzed in this report. Gaps are accepted or rejected based on comparison with a minimum value generally defined as the critical gaps. Critical gaps are estimated based on the accepted and rejected gaps observed in the field. Driver behavior can be classified as consistent or inconsistent on the basis of gap rejection. For consistent driver behavior, it is assumed that the rejected gaps are shorter than the accepted gaps. This report focuses on the estimation of the critical gaps and its distribution for consistent driver behavior. Critical gap, for consistent driver behavior is defined as the minimum value of gap above which the lane changer does not reject a gap to execute a lane change. Several gaps may be rejected prior to a gap being accepted, therefore, different types of rejected gaps can be utilized to estimate critical gaps. To systematically evaluate rejected gaps and propose the most suitable rejected gaps for use in estimating critical gaps, rejected gaps were analyzed using the mean rejected, median rejected, and the largest rejected gaps les than the accepted gaps (LRLA). To model the consistent gap acceptance behavior of drivers i.e. the rejected gap is less than the accepted gap, LRLA is used in estimating the critical gaps. Accepted, LRLA, and critical gaps were assumed to follow a gamma distribution. The values of critical time data col 17.