A Data-Driven Car-Following Model Based on the Random Forest

The car-following models are the research basis of traffic flow theory and microscopic traffic simulation. Among the previous work, the theory-driven models are dominant, while the data-driven ones are relatively rare. In recent years, the related technologies of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) re- presented by the Vehicles to Everything (V2X) technology have been developing rapidly. Utilizing the related technologies of ITS, the large-scale vehicle microscopic trajectory data with high quality can be acquired, which provides the research foundation for modeling the car-following behavior based on the data-driven methods. According to this point, a data-driven car-following model based on the Random Forest (RF) method was constructed in this work, and the Next Generation Simulation (NGSIM) dataset was used to calibrate and train the constructed model. The Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model, GM model, and Full Velocity Difference (FVD) model are em- ployed to comparatively verify the proposed model. The research results suggest that the model proposed in this work can accurately describe the car- following behavior with better performance under multiple performance indicators.