Merging in the form of a mandatory lane-change is an important issue in transportation research. Even when safely completed, merging may disturb the mainline traffic and reduce the efficiency or capacity of the roadway. In this paper, we consider a Stackelberg game-theoretic driver behavior model where the so-called utilities or payoffs reflect the merging vehicle's aggressiveness as it pertains the decision to merge as the situation stands or to accelerate, decelerate prior to the actual lane-change maneuver. The interaction of the merging vehicle with the mainline traffic is also considered whereby the combination of aggressiveness of the respective vehicles leads to both longitudinal and lateral disturbances to the mainline flow as well as subsequent reduction in the roadway throughput. The present study shows in semi-quantitative form that this impact depends on the level of aggressiveness of the merging and mainline vehicles, leading to the potential use of this model in traffic flow analysis and autonomous driving.

中文翻译：

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车道合并的 Stackelberg 博弈理论模型

以强制换道的形式合并是交通研究中的一个重要问题。即使安全完成，合并也可能会干扰干线交通并降低道路的效率或通行能力。在本文中，我们考虑了 Stackelberg 博弈论驾驶员行为模型，其中所谓的效用或收益反映了合并车辆的侵略性，因为它涉及根据情况合并或在实际换道之前加速、减速的决定演习。合并车辆与干线交通的相互作用也被考虑，其中相应车辆的侵略性的组合导致对干线流动的纵向和横向扰动以及随后道路吞吐量的降低。