Driver Behavior on Acceleration Lanes: Driving Simulator Study

Acceleration lanes provide access to freeways with the aim of improving traffic flow conditions and safety. Therefore, provision of an appropriate entrance ramp and acceleration lane geometry that allows the entering vehicle to accelerate to a speed closer to the main flow speed is crucial for comfortable and safe merging maneuvers. This paper presents an analysis of driver behavior on different acceleration lanes in various traffic conditions performed on an interactive driving simulator. Three different traffic volumes combined with two lengths of acceleration lane were simulated and their effects on driving performances have been studied. It has been observed that driver behavior during merging maneuvers is significantly influenced by traffic volume on the main lane and that the acceleration lane length does not show any significant effect on drivers’ speed, trajectories, and accelerations. In particular, as the traffic volume increases, so does the merging length of the driver; the acceleration oscillations and the number of gaps rejected also increase. The general results show that the advanced techniques of driving simulation can disclose the relationships between road design parameters and behavioral aspects important to create safer road infrastructure. Further simulation studies are planned to confirm the findings and to strengthen and generalize the results.