Comparison of Driver Behavior by Time of Day and Wet Pavement Conditions

Abstract

This study uses the two-fluid model for traffic flow, to examine driver behavior during both wet and dry pavement conditions and various times of the day. It was found that parameters in the two-fluid model known to be strongly affected by driver behavior (particularly driver aggressiveness) were statistically different between wet pavement and dry pavement conditions. The results confirmed that drivers tend to behave more conservatively when the pavement was wet compared with dry. The parameters of the two-fluid model were found to be statistically different for the morning peak period from the midday and evening peak periods, the results of which indicated that drivers behave more aggressively during the morning peak. Although these findings have been observed in previous studies, they have not been quantified using traffic data. This study shows that the two-fluid model apart from being a measure of network performance may be able to unveil more about driver behavior. There is a strong possibility that the parameters of the model may be used by researchers as a surrogate measure of safety and could lead to a measure to evaluate aggressive driving.