Dukes of Hazzardous Lane Changes

In this talk we present the work we did for the COMAP-MCM competition. Our paper examined the effects of various freeway passing schemes on traffic congestion and driver safety by using a computer simulation. The three rules we considered are the common keep-right-unless-passing, and slower-traffic-keep-right rules, as well as a no passing rule as a control. Overall, our data suggested to us that the slower-traffic-keep-right-rule seems to be marginally better at reducing traffic congestion. We found that driver compliance was an important factor in traffic flow.