Surrogate Analysis and Calibration of Safety-Related Driver Behavior Modeling in Microscopic Traffic Simulation and Driving Simulator for Aggressive Driving

Abstract

The increasingly urbanized world needs a solution to solve one of the most difficult problems – traffic congestion and safety. Researchers, consultants, and local officials are all attempting to solve these problems with different methods. However, it is apparent that understanding the driving behaviors on the roadway network and implementing roadway configurations accordingly is one of the great solutions. Therefore, the modeling of driving behavior would be the focus of this two-part thesis. Chapter two of this thesis will elaborate on the modeling of various driving behavior types in the microsimulation software by providing an easier-to-calibrate alternative for the driver behavior model in the microsimulation. The calibration method would leverage VISSIM, its highly customizable External driver model (EDM) API, JMP Pro's experiment design and sensitivity analysis, and SSAM's trajectory analysis. Then a set of driver model parameters are produced through sensitivity analysis, which is effective in producing a set of traffic conflicts that matches a preset target. Chapter three of this thesis focuses on simulating aggressive driving behaviors in a microsimulation and driving simulator co-simulation environment. Two co-simulation platforms are demonstrated, and the data collection are done in the VISSIM-Unity platform to collect microscopic driving data and trajectory data from the aggressive driver. Data analysis are performed on both datasets and determine the aggressive driver's safety impact.