Modeling of traffic accident in multi-agent-based traffic simulator

Abstract

Road traffic is a key portion of infrastructure to support mobility and transportation of human beings and goods. At the same time, it includes various kinds of risks. One of the most critical ones is a traffic accident. To evaluate traffic accidents quantitatively, we have newly developed a cognitive error model and implemented it into a multi-agent based traffic simulator. In the traffic simulator, each component creating traffic phenomena is modeled as an agent, and interaction among numerous agents simulates nonlinear behaviors of urban traffics. An actual traffic accident often occurs when a car driver overlooks something to watch, such as other cars, pedestrians, traffic signals, or obstacles. In the cognitive error model we developed, a driver agent has its own field of view and a gazing point, and cannot recognize obj ects off the gazing point. Through various types of test simulations using the developed simulator, we demonstrate that the simulator with the cognitive error model is a powerful tool to quantitatively evaluate traffic accidents and to discover such a dangerous situation that accidents frequently occur.