Using a Prospect Theory Approach to Studying the Car-Following Model
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Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017. Car following is a fundamental traffic feature that has been widely studied in literature using vehicles speed and acceleration. This study investigates car following from an entirely different perspective, a psychological approach based on the Prospect Theory (PT). PT is a behavioral economic theory that explains human reaction under risk situations. Since car following can be regarded as a risk containing task that addresses the need for balancing safety with travel time reduction, PT is an ideal approach to model car following. Employing PT can provide a spectrum of probabilistic locations of following vehicles in contradiction with traditional methods that define the exact position. This study presents a sensitivity analysis in order to validate the results and calibrate PTs parameters. The results reveal that PT generates similar probability distributions to the simulation scenarios that proxy the space headway in real situations.