Analysis of car following headway along multilane highway

Abstract

This study describes driver’s car following headway on multilane highways. The aim of this study is to analyse the driver’s car following headway along multilane highway at four selected locations. The objectives of this study were to determine car headway at Jalan Batu Pahat – Ayer Hitam multilane highway and to develop linear regression models to present the relationships between headway and speed. Videotaping method was used in field data collection during peak hours. Data were extracted from recorded video by using the image processing technique software. The distance headways and associated vehicles speeds were classified into vehicle following category by vehicle type: car following car, car following heavy goods vehicle, heavy goods vehicle following heavy goods vehicle and heavy goods vehicle following car categories. Linear regressions models were used to develop the relationships between headway and speed. Based on all headway distribution, it is found that patterns of the vehicle headways at four study locations were similar, which shown a significant number of the vehicles travel at headways less than 5 seconds. Furthermore, it can be concluded that many drivers tend to follow the vehicles ahead closely on multilane highways. The regression models were significantly reliable based on their R-square values which are ranging between 0.80 and 0.95. From the analysis, cars were found to maintain larger headways when following heavy goods vehicles compare to when following other cars.