Learning to Car-Follow Using an Inertia-Oriented Driving Technique: A Before-and-After Study on a Closed Circuit

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mattas, Kostantinos, Lucas-Alba, Antonio, Toledo, Tomer, Melchor, Oscar M., Bekhor, Shlomo, Ciuffo, Biagio
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866914202570981376
author Mattas, Kostantinos
Lucas-Alba, Antonio
Toledo, Tomer
Melchor, Oscar M.
Bekhor, Shlomo
Ciuffo, Biagio
author_facet Mattas, Kostantinos
Lucas-Alba, Antonio
Toledo, Tomer
Melchor, Oscar M.
Bekhor, Shlomo
Ciuffo, Biagio
contents For decades, car following and traffic flow models have assumed that drivers default driving strategy is to maintain a safe distance. Several previous studies have questioned whether the Driving to Keep Distance is a traffic invariant. Therefore, the acceleration deceleration torque asymmetry of drivers must necessarily determine the observed patterns of traffic oscillations. Those studies indicate that drivers can adopt alternative CF strategies, such as Driving to Keep Inertia, by following basic instructions. The present work extends the evidence from previous research by showing the effectiveness of a DI course that immediately translates into practice on a closed circuit. Twelve drivers were invited to follow a lead car that varied its speed on a real circuit. Then, the driver took a DI course and returned to the same real car following scenario. Drivers generally adopted DD as the default CF mode in the pretest, both in field and simulated PC conditions, yielding very similar results. After taking the full DI course, drivers showed significantly less acceleration, deceleration, and speed variability than did the pretest, both in the field and in the simulated conditions, which indicates that drivers adopted the DI strategy. This study is the first to show the potential of adopting a DI strategy in a real circuit.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_13694
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Learning to Car-Follow Using an Inertia-Oriented Driving Technique: A Before-and-After Study on a Closed Circuit
Mattas, Kostantinos
Lucas-Alba, Antonio
Toledo, Tomer
Melchor, Oscar M.
Bekhor, Shlomo
Ciuffo, Biagio
Human-Computer Interaction
Computers and Society
Robotics
For decades, car following and traffic flow models have assumed that drivers default driving strategy is to maintain a safe distance. Several previous studies have questioned whether the Driving to Keep Distance is a traffic invariant. Therefore, the acceleration deceleration torque asymmetry of drivers must necessarily determine the observed patterns of traffic oscillations. Those studies indicate that drivers can adopt alternative CF strategies, such as Driving to Keep Inertia, by following basic instructions. The present work extends the evidence from previous research by showing the effectiveness of a DI course that immediately translates into practice on a closed circuit. Twelve drivers were invited to follow a lead car that varied its speed on a real circuit. Then, the driver took a DI course and returned to the same real car following scenario. Drivers generally adopted DD as the default CF mode in the pretest, both in field and simulated PC conditions, yielding very similar results. After taking the full DI course, drivers showed significantly less acceleration, deceleration, and speed variability than did the pretest, both in the field and in the simulated conditions, which indicates that drivers adopted the DI strategy. This study is the first to show the potential of adopting a DI strategy in a real circuit.
title Learning to Car-Follow Using an Inertia-Oriented Driving Technique: A Before-and-After Study on a Closed Circuit
topic Human-Computer Interaction
Computers and Society
Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.13694