In this study, a traffic flow model, the so-called Taillight Adapting traffic model, is developed considering the driver's activities impact following the taillight effect of the preceding vehicle, which is switched on and off based on the vehicle's accelerations and decelerations. To quantify a driver's sensitivity to the velocity gap, we introduced the concept of the new driver's sensitivity function, which has twofold formulations. The first formulation follows the HDDS model1, which presumes the sensitivity is dependent on a headway distance. The second formulation presumes that the sensitivity depends on a velocity gap, which might be informed by the taillight of a preceding vehicle. We have calibrated the neutralizing proficiency of a traffic flow field for the HDDS and proposed the Taillight Adapting model by utilizing the linear stability theory. Finally, a series of numerical simulations have been carried out of the improved Taillight Adapting model and conventional FVD model to investigate how the traffic flow field for the Taillight Adapting model behaves differently from the conventional FVD model.
PACS: 89.40.-a (Transportation); 87.15. Aa (Theory and modeling; Computer simulation)