FLOWSIM and its applications for convoy driving system stability study

With rapid growth in motorway (freeway) traffic, various intelligent transport systems, which may benefit road capacity by increasing throughput and decreasing emissions, are rapidly evolving around the globe. However, the design and assessment of many of these measures (e.g. cooperative convoying) to address these issues must be developed off-line because of the cost and risks of potential field trials. Simulation is a crucial tool in this process, although such techniques depend for their validity on the quality of the underlying models of driver behavior. In this paper, a microscopic simulation model, FLOWSIM, featured with fuzzy inference systems, is introduced. Using FLOWSIM, the dynamic stability of a convoy driving system under different communication conditions was investigated. Results shown in this paper may be interesting to transportation researches and car manufactories.