Lane changing decision model for heavy vehicle drivers

Lane changing manoeuvres of heavy vehicles have significant influence on surrounding traffic characteristics due to the physical effects that the heavy vehicles impose on surrounding vehicles. These effects are the result of heavy vehicles' length, size, weight and the limitations in their manoeuvrability. Due to the importance of heavy vehicle lane changing manoeuvres, this paper presents an exclusive fuzzy logic lane changing decision model with two and three fuzzy sets for heavy vehicle drivers on freeways. To examine the accuracy of the heavy vehicle drivers' lane changing decision model, the number of estimated lane changing manoeuvres of heavy vehicles are compared to the observed number of heavy vehicle lane changing manoeuvres. Furthermore, the estimated traffic flow measurements (e.g., traffic flow and average speed) are compared to the observed traffic flow measurements through microscopic traffic simulations. The obtained results show that the fuzzy logic heavy vehicle lane changing model can better replicate the observed lane changing decisions of heavy vehicle drivers than the current lane changing decision models. Furthermore, using an exclusive heavy vehicle lane changing decision model can increase the accuracy of the microscopic traffic simulation software in estimating the macroscopic traffic flow measurements