Understanding Passenger Car-Heavy Vehicle Interactions and Conflicts on Roadways*for Developing Proactive Traffic Safety Strategies

交通事故给社会造成生命财产损失、医疗费用和交通拥堵等重大损失。特别是，涉及重型车辆的碰撞通常会导致更严重的伤害，因为碰撞对车身的影响更大。由于大多数重型车辆的行驶速度低于轻型乘用车，汽车司机往往会调整车速或改变车道，以避免与重型车辆发生冲突。这种驾驶员行为导致个体车速的高度变化，增加了驾驶员失误和撞车发生的可能性。因此，需要更好地了解轿车和重型车辆之间的相互作用和冲突，以制定交通安全策略，以减少碰撞发生和伤害严重程度。**本研究的目的是了解乘用车和重型车辆在道路上发生冲突时如何改变其行为。这项研究将开发反映真实世界车辆相互作用的驾驶员行为模型，该模型基于观察到的驾驶员在高速公路和平面交叉口的跟车、变道和接受缺口行为。这项研究还将使用建立在驾驶员行为模型基础上的交通模型来估计碰撞的可能性和严重程度，该模型模拟了汽车和重型车辆混合流动中的个别车辆运动。利用这些模型，研究将提出主动的交通控制策略，指导司机避免车辆冲突，防止撞车事件发生。预防撞车事故将节省大量因严重机动车撞车事故而产生的社会成本。重型车辆安全性的提高还将提高货物运输效率，促进国际贸易，并为加拿大经济增长做出贡献。

Traffic crashes cause significant losses to society such as life and property losses, medical cost and traffic congestion. In particular, collisions involving heavy vehicles generally result in more severe injuries due to higher impacts of collisions on vehicle bodies. Since most heavy vehicles move at lower speed than light passenger cars, car drivers tend to adjust their speeds or change lanes to avoid conflicts with heavy vehicles. This driver behaviour leads to high variations in individual speeds and it increases the likelihood of driver errors and crash occurrence. Thus, better understanding of interactions and conflicts between cars and heavy vehicles is needed to establish traffic safety strategies to reduce crash occurrence and injury severity.**The objective of this research is to understand how passenger cars and heavy vehicles change their behaviour when they are in conflict on roadways. The study will develop the driver behaviour models which reflect real-world vehicle interactions based on the observed driver's car-following, lane-changing and gap-acceptance behaviour on freeways and at at-grade intersections. The study will also estimate the probability and severity of collisions using the traffic model built on the driver behaviour models, which mimics individual vehicle movements in car-heavy vehicle mixed flow. Using these models, the study will propose proactive traffic control strategies which will guide drivers to avoid vehicle conflicts and prevent crash occurrence. Prevention of crashes will save a substantial amount of social costs incurred by severe motor vehicle crashes. The improvement of heavy vehicle safety will also increase the efficiency of goods movement, facilitate international trades, and contribute to growth of Canada's economy.