Overtaking Behavior on Divided Highways Under Mixed Traffic Conditions

The acceleration and overtaking characteristics of different types of vehicles on four-lane divided highways in India are evaluated in this paper. The floating car method was used to record the time of different events in an overtaking process. It is observed that the shoulder condition (paved and unpaved) influences the acceleration behavior during overtaking. In the case of highways with paved shoulders, two-wheelers rarely overtook the test vehicle as they mostly used shoulder lane for their movement. An inverse correlation is observed between the overtaking speed and the acceleration rate. Graphs are plotted between the relative speed of the overtaking and overtaken vehicles against the overtaking time for flying overtaking.