Modelling tactical driving manoeuvres with GA-INTACT

Abstract

This work concerns the design and development of a driving simulation system, which exhibits intelligent driving behaviour at the tactical level, as part of a traffic simulation environment. Our tactical driving system using genetic algorithms, named GA-INTACT, accounts for the subject vehicle and other vehicles positions and speed parameters in the surrounding traffic condition, and selects favourable speed change and lane transition actions for the 'subject' vehicle, according to safety, speed and driving behaviour criteria. Simulation results demonstrated that the adoption of the Genetic Algorithms approach for obtaining near-optimum driving solutions eliminates the need for learning driving patterns, and allows the efficient handling of the complex nature of tactical driving modelling problem. The role of the driving behaviour in influencing the outcome of the driver's decision is emphasised, an aspect that was not treated sufficiently in previous tactical driving simulation approaches. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.