Development of a Car-Following Tendency Prediction Method and Its Application to a Forward Collision Warning System

It is important to understand the driver’s car-following tendency to enhance the effectiveness as well as the acceptance of advanced driving support systems. If a system can estimate the driver’s usual car-following tendency, it can provide avoidance support matched to his/her sense of normal safety driving when the vehicle is approaching a preceding one. Since the car-following tendency varies not only between drivers but also within a driver by the feeling and/or the driving environment, real-time estimation is essential.This study introduces a method that can easily predict the car-following tendency. The method uses such parameters as the throttle-pedal released timing and the braking timing that were found to be correlated from the naturalistic driving data analysis. It was found that the method can predict the car-following tendency within a short distance. The authors applied the method to a forward collision warning system and confirmed the potential benefit of the system.