Analyzing cooperative lane change models for connected vehicles

This paper examines intelligent lane change models based on the cooperation among connected vehicles for traffic management and travel time optimization. Lane change decisions and speed controls could be coordinated and optimized to reduce the overall braking and achieve greater traffic throughput. In an effort to design a distributed cooperative lane change assistant (D-CLCA) within the European Commission's project REDUCTION*, this paper describes the requirements associated with an optimal lane change behavior, and evaluate existing lane change models based on these requirements. These models are evaluated for travel times, fuel consumption, number of lane changes and the overall braking globally for all vehicles on the considered road segment. We have developed traffic simulations using different traffic densities for both symmetric and asymmetric lane changes and different levels of cooperation among vehicles. Our empirical analysis shows that an optimal lane change model should optimize the conflicting requirements of maintaining desired speeds and reducing the number of lane changes and fuel consumption for all vehicles simultaneously. These results will be used to develop an intelligent distributed and cooperative lane change assistant.