Driving Behaviour: Models and Challenges

Driving behaviour models capture drivers’ tactical manoeuvring decisions in different traffic conditions. These models are essential to microscopic traffic simulation systems. The paper reviews the state‐of‐the‐art in the main areas of driving behaviour research: acceleration, lane changing and gap acceptance. Overall, the main limitation of current models is that in many cases they do not adequately capture the sophistication of drivers: they do not capture the interdependencies among the decisions made by the same drivers over time and across decision dimensions; they represent instantaneous decision‐making, which fails to capture drivers’ planning and anticipation capabilities; and only capture myopic considerations that do not account for extended driving goals and considerations. Furthermore, most models proposed in the literature were not estimated rigorously. In many cases, this is due to the limited availability of detailed trajectory data, which are required for estimation. Hence, data availability poses a significant obstacle to the advancement of driving behaviour modelling.