Desired Speed Distributions on Two-Lane Highways Under Various Conditions

On a two-lane highway with passing restrictions, user dissatisfaction usually is caused by the inability to drive at the desired speed because of a relatively slower lead vehicle. Although this condition clearly shows that vehicles in this state are following, current definitions of "following vehicle" are based mainly on headway alone. A "follower" can be more logically defined as a vehicle traveling below its desired speed because of the presence of a relatively slower lead vehicle. The problem arises because the desired speeds of different drivers vary significantly; the variation makes it difficult to assess whether a vehicle is constrained on the basis of directly accessible data alone. A study was done to develop desired speed distributions for various traffic, weather, and ambient conditions, which can be later used as input for simulation or to calculate a vehicle's following probability given its current speed. The collected data were classified according to different traffic, geometric, weather, and ambient conditions to form 64 data sets for analysis. The desired speed distributions were estimated by using the modified Kaplan-Meier approach and were found to be suitable for use as either simulation input or as a tool that can be used for follower identification. Differences between holiday and weekday travel speed preferences and effects of weather on driver speed choices were also found.