Analyzing the impact of adjacent lane dynamics on traffic stability under passing and driver attention in a two-lane scenario

Abstract

With the advancement of telecommunications, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) technology has made significant strides towards intelligent transport. In a V2V environment, drivers can obtain up-to-the-minute information on the movements of nearby vehicles, including those in adjacent lanes. Two-lane highways comprise a significant portion of the global road network, and passing maneuvers regularly impact their performance. This study examines how the cars in the nearby lane affect vehicle’s driving dynamics when passing is allowed on a two-lane highway. We use nonlinear analysis to come up with the modified Korteweg–de Vries (mKdV) equation and describe how traffic density waves change in dense traffic in view of the model’s stability conditions. The numerical simulation validates the theoretical results of both linear and non-linear analysis, ensuring that congestion can be reduced by considering the average speed of the three leading vehicles in the adjacent lane. When drivers are aware of the average speed of their neighbors, the flow of traffic is more stable; passing has a detrimental effect on this stability. This is because drivers who possess knowledge of the mean velocity of the vehicles around them are more inclined to uphold a steady velocity, as opposed to continuously altering lanes in order to overtake other vehicles.