Investigating the Heterogeneity in Driving Behavior of Powered Two-Wheelers under Mixed Traffic Flow

The maneuvering of Powered-Two-Wheeler (PTW) does not follow lane discipline, and can make flexible lane changing and overtaking in mixed traffic. Aggressive PTW riders may have very different behavioral characteristics as compared to the others. The aim of this study is to investigate the heterogeneity in the driving behavior of PTWs in a traffic stream. An approach is proposed to identify the aggressive riders and find out the factors contributed to the modeling of aggressiveness. The authors argue that separating the aggressive PTW riders from the others can help to categorize their behavioral models and be potentially useful for implementation in traffic simulation model for mixed traffic. The study is based on a vehicle trajectory dataset collected from a four-lane urban arterial in Taipei, Taiwan. Results show that vehicle speed, number of overtaking and lane changing actions, and gap acceptances, are factors associated with aggressiveness.