Urban expressway merge area lane changing decision model for incoming vehicles under heterogeneous traffic flow

Regarding the lane-changing issue of merging vehicles in the expressway merge area under the heterogeneous traffic flow environment, this paper comprehensively considers the differences in vehicle driving styles and the penalty mechanism, and proposes an interactive decision-making model for Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) and Connected Human-driven Vehicles (HDVs) that integrates cooperative and non-cooperative game strategies. Firstly, a lane-changing control strategy for merging vehicles based on the idea of dynamic game is proposed. Then, for the two situations where the lagging vehicles are CAV and HDV respectively, two different interaction mechanisms are established, and a lane-changing benefit function that integrates lane-changing costs, safety benefits, and driving efficiency was constructed. Finally, the validity of the model is verified through simulation experiments. The simulation results indicate that under different traffic flow and CAV penetration conditions, the lane-changing model based on game theory can significantly reduce the average travel time of merging vehicles and enhance traffic fluidity. Compared with the traditional Lane Change Model 2017 (LC2017 model), this model exhibits superior acceleration control during the merging process, improving driving comfort and safety.