Road safety is one of the major concerns in the ever-growing traffic network. In addressing this, surrogate safety measures play a critical role in identifying collision instincts. Besides the added advantage of quantifying collision instincts in advance, surrogate safety measures have their limitations. For example, in some instances, those measures tend to show erroneous results. In this paper, a new surrogate safety measure Instant Heeding Time (IHT), is presented based on follower vehicle attention in the traffic streams. This new measure is integrated with a distance gap and the vehicles' speeds to assess probable rear-end collisions. Further, along with other safety measures, the developed safety framework is tested over a study section, with the help of trajectory datasets at three traffic flow conditions (free flow, capacity, and congested) under prevailing heterogeneous (mixed) traffic conditions. Based on the safety framework, it is observed that, in the case of free flow and capacity conditions, 23 and 55 probable rear-end collisions points are detected. At the congested conditions, no rear-end collision points are observed. Further, smaller vehicles in the traffic stream are associated with a higher number of rear-end collision instincts than other vehicle categories. The conceptualized safety framework can be applied on a real-time basis for monitoring the safety measures for vehicles in a mixed traffic stream.@en

The article describes modeling vehicular movements using supervised machine learning algorithms with trajectory data from heterogeneous non-lane-based traffic conditions. The trajectory data on the mid-block road section of around 540 m is used in the study. Supervised machine learning algorithms are employed to model the vehicular positions. A set of parameters were identified for modeling the longitudinal and lateral positions. With the set of parameters, the algorithm’s potentiality for mimicking vehicular positions is evaluated. It was identified that supervised machine learning algorithms would model the vehicles’ positions with accuracy in the range of 20–60 mean absolute percentage error. The k-NN algorithm was marginally edging past all algorithms and acted as a promising candidate for modeling vehicular positions.@en

The diverse nature of vehicle categories and the resultant lane discipline in mixed (heterogeneous) traffic cause complex spatial interactions. As a result, the driving behavior process in mixed traffic conditions is meaningfully different, where both longitudinal and lateral movements of the vehicles continuously occur. Under prevailing homogeneous traffic conditions in developed countries, driving behavior is partially discrete, where following longitudinal behavior and outboard lane-change models can model traffic behavior. However, the established car-following and lane-change models cannot be directly used in shaping mixed traffic conditions. Such conditions also warrant the use of high-quality microlevel vehicular trajectory data. Accordingly, realizing this need, vehicular trajectory data for different traffic flow conditions were developed. The data were used to extract the parameters required for modeling the vehicles' positions using machine learning algorithms. Three established supervised machine learning algorithms (k-NN, random forest, and regression tree) and deep learning are selected to model mixed traffic conditions. The parameters which influence longitudinal and lateral movements are identified using Spearman correlation analysis. Furthermore, simulation runs are performed using the python language. The performance of the algorithms is evaluated both at the microscopic and macroscopic levels using relevant traffic indicators. The results show that a deep learning model and k-NN tend to replicate better-mixed traffic conditions than random forest and regression trees.

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The paper presents the performance analysis of a well-designed truck parking terminal, which is planned for regulating truck traffic over a commercial port. The designed truck parking terminal is modeled using microscopic traffic simulation, which is validated based on the movement of vehicles to the parking bays. After validation, various scenarios were created to evaluate parking terminal performance by varying the parking volumes and number of operational parking bays. The operational efficiency of the parking terminal for design scenarios was evaluated using parking performance measures that included parking load, average parking duration, parking turnover, and load-to-capacity ratio (parking index). For the design peak load of 4,200 vehicles/day with a uniform arrival rate, the operational efficiency was found to be about 73%. Interestingly, it was observed that with an increase in the number of operational parking bays, the parking efficiency decreased for the given volume level. Considering this phenomenon, a methodology was developed to identify the optimum number of parking bays under varying demand-supply scenarios. The developed methodology can help identify the optimum number of parking bays for existing and future (expansion) conditions. Furthermore, this study highlights the importance of using simulation in evaluating operational and design aspects of transportation facilities, where the need for repeated empirical observations is eliminated. As such, this study should be of interest to traffic engineers and practitioners interested in the efficient operation of parking terminals.

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This study aims to model traffic flow under weak lane based heterogonous (mixed) traffic conditions. Unlike homogeneous traffic, when a follower (subject) vehicle in mixed traffic moves closer to its leader vehicle, it tends to adjust its longitudinal movement or change its lane and acts discretely. Due to this phenomenon, traffic flow modeling under such conditions is always challenging. A new driver behavioral logic is conceptualized for the vehicles' movement within a combination of surrounding vehicles. In which the following behavior was dissected with the lateral shift distance between vehicles. Two car-following models for homogeneous traffic conditions, the IDM and Gipps models were adapted with relevant lateral behavior parameters to different vehicle classes under mixed-traffic conditions. The new driving behavior logic was incorporated externally in place of default logic. The results showed that the performance of the adapted models was better accurate than the classical models. @en

This paper proposes a novel approach for examining rear-end collisions between successive vehicles in a traffic stream. In this approach, a new safety measure of the follower driver's attentiveness is proposed, referred to herein as instantaneous heeding time (IHT), reflecting the subject follower's heeding nature concerning its leader. A safety framework that integrates the IHT with the distance gap and the instantaneous follower's speed is presented. The applicability of the framework is demonstrated using an Indian-traffic trajectory database (developed in this study) and the homogeneous traffic database of the next generation simulation (NGSIM) project developed in the United States (U.S.). Five study sections in India and two study sections in the U.S. are analyzed for three traffic-flow levels. For Indian traffic, the results show that motorized two-wheelers (MTW) have degraded road safety due to the unrestrained lateral crisscross movements. Due to the presence of MTW, the Indian-traffic stream operates in a disorderly fashion, thereby increasing the probability of rear-end collisions with other vehicle classes. Further, the importance of implementing cautioning measures for drivers that reduce the probability of collisions is demonstrated. Besides, the NGSIM application results confirmed the proposed framework's applicability to both Indian and homogeneous traffic conditions. In practice, the proposed framework can be used in real-time to monitor the driver's aggressive instincts.@en

The present work introduced a framework of developing comprehensive extended vehicular trajectory data under heterogeneous non-lane-based traffic conditions like the NGSIM datasets in the United States. Due to the absence of automation and instrumentation, and even the lack of sensor deployment on roads in developing economies like India, it is even more challenging to study driver behavior. A new stitching-based algorithm was used for developing the extended trajectory database for three traffic-flow levels on a 535-m long section of an urban arterial. The algorithm was used to stitch the trajectory data over the segments such that the subject vehicle with continuous trajectory data points over the entire study stretch. The developed framework is a novel tool for establishing a trajectory dataset for mixed traffic, it should be of interest to researchers in developing and developed countries.

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