Relaxation Phenomenon after Lane Changing

A calibration and an analysis of a recently proposed relaxation model that requires only one additional parameter ∊ are presented. The relaxation phenomenon takes place whenever a lane change occurs at a short spacing that falls outside the fundamental diagram. Such nonequilibrium spacing poses problems to car-following rules that can only handle equilibrium ones. The relaxation model has been already calibrated with macroscopic data. Trajectory data from NGSIM are used here to undertake a more rigorous calibration and validation. It is found that for a given driver there exists a value of ∊ that reproduces the relaxation process with uncanny accuracy and that the mean ∊-value does not worsen the fit significantly.