Modeling Driving Responses to Vehicle-to-Vehicle Hazard Alerts in Freeway Traffic

Microscopic simulation has been widely adopted to predict future traffic conditions. Vehicle-to-vehicle communication of hazard alerts has been proposed for use on freeways, but its impact on freeway traffic has not been evaluated. This paper describes the method of modeling freeway incidents with and without the use of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) hazard alerts. Based on the NGSIM oversaturated freeway flow algorithms, drivers' responses to incidents are modeled and evaluated. The simulation results show how the V2V alerts could influence freeway traffic, and provide initial estimates of their benefits.