ASSESSMENT LANE CHANGING BEHAVIOR IN LOCAL RURAL ROADS

The lane changing model is one of the most important cornerstone models to build a traffic microscopic simulation model. To build such lane changing model, there is a need to investigate the drivers’ characteristics from field data. Accordingly, this study has mainly focused on lane changing behavior of Iraqi drivers. A huge amount of data has been collected from different sites in Iraq using specific type of cameras; these five sites (roads) are: Baghdad–Hilla, Baghdad–Mahmudiyah, Baghdad Kut, Baghdad–Diyala and Najaf- Karbala roads. In addition, gun-speed has been also used to collect data of desired speeds. Different data have also been collected such as flow, headway, and speeds. The results show that as the flow increases, the frequency of lane changing also increases up to specific range of flow then as flow increases the frequency of lane changing decreases. In addition, this study indicates higher number of lane changing over all observed sites comparing with other countries. Finally, this study also indicates that the violated number of lane change varies with different levels of flow.