From perception to conflict resolution: priority-managing mechanism for road intersections

International audienceTraffic jams constitute an important problem in the cities. Before improving or modifying theinfrastructure and the traffic equipments, it seems necessary to evaluate and to measure their impacts onthe traffic system, on the capacity as well as on the safety. The evaluation of the proposed solutions canbe done by tools such as microscopic traffic simulation models, provided that the studied solution dealswith local phenomena. But to study the local traffic situations it would seem necessary to take intoaccount the driver's behaviours. Nevertheless, in many traffic studies, the authors introduce normativebehaviours in their models, e.g. they follow the rules from the Highway Code. Unfortunately, driversbehaviours are not normative, moreover in some crossroad situations they can establish their informalrules, which can differ from the established ones. Not to take into account driver's behaviour in thecrossroad modelling is a barrier for a better use of the traffic simulation models. Our aim in this paper isto present a model where the driver's behaviour is based on a larger view of its environment, and thus topropose a new mechanism focused on both the resolution of the conflicts at the crossroad and themanagement of the longitudinal space, e.g. the space in the front of the simulated driver. Thismechanism allows the storage at the centre of the intersection independently of the equipment