Impacts of SOC on car-following behavior and travel time in the heterogeneous traffic system

• A car-following model for electric vehicle is proposed.
• The effects of battery swap on each vehicle’s driving behavior are studied.
• The effects of battery swap on each vehicle’s travel time are studied.

Since the SOC (state of charge) of the battery of each electric vehicle directly determines whether the battery should be charged/swapped, the SOC may affect the electric vehicle’s driving behavior. In this paper, we introduce the SOC of battery into the electric vehicle’s driving behavior model and propose a car-following model for electric vehicles, and then use the proposed model to study the effects of the SOC of battery and battery swap on each vehicle’s driving behavior in the heterogeneous traffic system consisting of traditional vehicles and electric vehicles. The numerical results show that the proposed model can reproduce some complex traffic phenomena resulted by the SOC of battery and battery swap and that the influences on each vehicle’s driving behavior are directly related to the initial traffic state, the electric vehicle’s proportion, and the SOC of battery.