Car-following behavior based on Iranians drivers, and the differentiation of normal and professional drivers behavior

Traffic simulation is an integral part of policy making in different situations in traffic flow. The traffic simulators like AIMSUN5 and MITSIM6 are using a wide array of models like car-following, lane changing, gap acceptance and so on, to simulate the drivers behavior in different situation. Needless to say, the traffic behaviors differ in different regions and countries. From this angle, we need to calibrate those models based on Iranians drivers to have a precise simulation and make a good plan for the future. In addition, the drivers behaviors are affected by driver’s skill, in other words professional drivers have different behavior compared to regular drivers. In this study, was tried to make a new car following model based on Iranian drivers and compare normal drivers to Taxi drivers as professional drivers. To that end, the data have been collected by a video camera that mounted on the Tabi’at bridge, Tehran, Iran. Through analysis of this data, 141 samples of car-car following have been observed. Simultaneously, 23 cases extracted in which a Taxi follows a car or a Taxi. In this study the GHR7 model is used, which is a well-known model for car following behavior. The modeling and verification indicate that the calibrated model compared to the Yang s model, which used in the MITSIM, shows different pattern, and the effect of speed and headway on acceleration have been deferred for this two groups. In addition, the regular and professional drivers have different behavior, which make it necessary to improve the simulators based on this difference.