Comparison of car following behavior between UK and Japan

This paper describes a comparison study of driver´s car following behavior between Southampton (UK) and Tsukuba (Japan). AIST and TRG have developed instrumented vehicles, and filed experiments for behavioral data collection were conducted in each country. The research focused on the static (distribution of inter-vehicle distances and desired headway distance) and the dynamic aspects (acceleration rate according to relative speeds and distance divergence) of the car following behavior. The dynamic aspect was evaluated using fuzzy logic car following model developed at TRG. The results suggest that Southampton drivers tend to take shorter distance headway and accelerate more strongly when the velocity of the leading vehicle is faster. The distance headway of Tsukuba drivers was found to be longer and the deceleration was stronger while approaching a leading vehicle. The implications and future direction of car-following behavior comparison study are discussed.