An Extended Stimulus-Response Car-Following Model Based on Safety Distance

This study investigates the classic safety-distance rationale based on car-following behavior, which is a modified model that incorporates a quantitative measure of the continuous deceleration process of a vehicle’s braking, and the relative speed between the leading and following vehicles. Considering that the acceleration of vehicles is a function of both safety distance and relative speed, an extended stimulus-response car-following model based on safety distance is developed. The parameters of the proposed car-following model are calibrated and the parameters of the extended model are tuned using NGSIM data. A comparative case study and traffic flow simulation is carried out on the proposed model. Results show that the control algorithm can effectively regulate the car-following behavior, where traffic flow consisting of multiple vehicles exhibits higher stability and vehicle throughput increases.