Modeling Headway in Heterogeneous and Mixed Traffic Flow: A Statistical Distribution Based on a General Exponential Function

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Main Authors: Leungbootnak, Natchaphon, Li, Zihao, Wei, Zihang, Lord, Dominique, Zhang, Yunlong
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866912688263659520
author Leungbootnak, Natchaphon
Li, Zihao
Wei, Zihang
Lord, Dominique
Zhang, Yunlong
author_facet Leungbootnak, Natchaphon
Li, Zihao
Wei, Zihang
Lord, Dominique
Zhang, Yunlong
contents The ability of existing headway distributions to accurately reflect the diverse behaviors and characteristics in heterogeneous traffic (different types of vehicles) and mixed traffic (human-driven vehicles with autonomous vehicles) is limited, leading to unsatisfactory goodness of fit. To address these issues, we modified the exponential function to obtain a novel headway distribution. Rather than employing Euler's number (e) as the base of the exponential function, we utilized a real number base to provide greater flexibility in modeling the observed headway. However, the proposed is not a probability function. We normalize it to calculate the probability and derive the closed-form equation. In this study, we utilized a comprehensive experiment with five open datasets: highD, exiD, NGSIM, Waymo, and Lyft to evaluate the performance of the proposed distribution and compared its performance with six existing distributions under mixed and heterogeneous traffic flow. The results revealed that the proposed distribution not only captures the fundamental characteristics of headway distribution but also provides physically meaningful parameters that describe the distribution shape of observed headways. Under heterogeneous flow on highways (i.e., uninterrupted traffic flow), the proposed distribution outperforms other candidate distributions. Under urban road conditions (i.e., interrupted traffic flow), including heterogeneous and mixed traffic, the proposed distribution still achieves decent results.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_03154
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Modeling Headway in Heterogeneous and Mixed Traffic Flow: A Statistical Distribution Based on a General Exponential Function
Leungbootnak, Natchaphon
Li, Zihao
Wei, Zihang
Lord, Dominique
Zhang, Yunlong
Applications
Machine Learning
The ability of existing headway distributions to accurately reflect the diverse behaviors and characteristics in heterogeneous traffic (different types of vehicles) and mixed traffic (human-driven vehicles with autonomous vehicles) is limited, leading to unsatisfactory goodness of fit. To address these issues, we modified the exponential function to obtain a novel headway distribution. Rather than employing Euler's number (e) as the base of the exponential function, we utilized a real number base to provide greater flexibility in modeling the observed headway. However, the proposed is not a probability function. We normalize it to calculate the probability and derive the closed-form equation. In this study, we utilized a comprehensive experiment with five open datasets: highD, exiD, NGSIM, Waymo, and Lyft to evaluate the performance of the proposed distribution and compared its performance with six existing distributions under mixed and heterogeneous traffic flow. The results revealed that the proposed distribution not only captures the fundamental characteristics of headway distribution but also provides physically meaningful parameters that describe the distribution shape of observed headways. Under heterogeneous flow on highways (i.e., uninterrupted traffic flow), the proposed distribution outperforms other candidate distributions. Under urban road conditions (i.e., interrupted traffic flow), including heterogeneous and mixed traffic, the proposed distribution still achieves decent results.
title Modeling Headway in Heterogeneous and Mixed Traffic Flow: A Statistical Distribution Based on a General Exponential Function
topic Applications
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.03154