Analysis of discretionary lane-changing behaviours of autonomous vehicles based on real-world data

This study aims to quantify the impact of discretionary lane-changing (DLC) on following vehicles (FVs) in the target lane using real-world dataset. The Waymo Open Dataset is used to identify the differences between autonomous vehicles (AVs) DLC and human-driven vehicles (HDVs) DLC maneuvers and compare their impacts on the driving volatility. Then, a block maxima (BM) model is applied to estimate crash risks. Finally, multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) is adopted to model gap acceptance behaviors of AV and HDV. Compared to HDV DLC, AV DLC leads to lower speed and yaw rate volatility and smaller acceleration rates of FVs. Further, the BM model reveals that the crash risk in AV DLC events is half of that in HDV DLC events. Additionally, MARS show that AV and HDV accept different lead gap. These findings highlight the benefits of mixing AVs in traffic and guide the improvement of AV controllers.