Identification of different vehicle-following manoeuvres for heterogeneous weak-lane disciplined traffic condition from vehicle trajectory data

Indian traffic can be considered as mixed and heterogeneous due to the presence of various types of vehicles that operate with weak lane discipline. Consequently, vehicles can position themselves anywhere in the traffic stream depending on availability of gaps. The choice of lateral positioning is an important component in representing and characterising mixed traffic. The present study aims to develop a methodology to extract the trajectory of vehicle for heterogeneous non-lane based traffic condition. To study the movement pattern of vehicle types and to explore the vehicular behaviour and its reaction to different traffic environment, it is essential to extract the trajectory data of vehicles. Therefore, a semi-automated tool using python's graphical user interface is developed to extract the vehicle trajectory. The field data provides evidence that the trajectory of vehicles in Indian urban roads have significantly varying longitudinal and lateral components and the traffic flow characteristics of each vehicle types vary from one another. Present study analysis the variation in driving behaviour of vehicle with lateral position characteristics. It has been found that the following behaviour of vehicles varies with the lane position and the traffic parameters of each lane differ from each other.