An improved lane-changing rules for one-way two lane traffic with one work zone

In this paper, some new lane-changing rules for one-way two-lane traffic with one work zone are proposed. Considering their velocities difference between the vehicle in the current lane and some vehicle behind/ahead in the target lane, and its own velocity, driver will choose to change lanes if necessary. Unlike some previous studies, one-way two-lane with one work zone is divided into three sections: symmetrical zone, conversion zone and work zone. In the conversion zone, the maximum velocity of vehicles in merge lane depends on the number of unsuccessful lane-changing. Based on the refined Nagel–Schreckenberg model, all vehicles update their corresponding velocities and positions in own respective lanes, employing open boundary conditions. The computer results show that the system has two states: unsaturated state and saturated state. In the saturated state, these vehicles on these two lanes have the same occupancy, which change steadily without inflection point when approaching the conversion zone, especially for upstream of the work zone. As one of the results of vehicle self-organization, the system can reach the saturated state in a short period of time as the injection probability increases. This saturated state can also spread across the conversion zone to the symmetrical zone. In the unsaturated state, one also finds that the velocity distribution can be consistent with the actual traffic conditions for upstream of the work zone. We selected three road sections with work zone to carry out field test, and the flow of these three road sections is basically consistent with the flow of the saturated state for the present model.