Opposite Direction Driving

Opposite-Direction-Driving#

This page describes simulations which are enabled for overtaking through the opposite-direction edge. To enable this feature, the network must contain additional information regarding the adjacency of opposite-direction edges.

Building a Network for opposite-direction-driving#

To enable overtaking through the opposite direction lane, the .net.xml file must contain <neigh> elements that specify adjacency. The options for including this information are described below.

Heuristically#

By setting the netconvert option --opposites.guess <BOOL>, opposite edges are identified heuristically.

Visually#

Lane attribute 'opposite' can be set directly in netedit

Explicitly#

Adjacency can be declared explicitly in an .edg.xml file as described here. Explicit definitions take precedence over heuristic computation of adjacency. To modify an existing network, an .edg.xml file can be loaded as a patch

Model Description#

Vehicles may overtake through the opposite direction lane to improve their travel speed. The decision to perform such a maneuver is subject to additional checks in regard to

  • oncoming vehicles
  • the assumed duration for overtaking the leading vehicle(s)
  • the presence of free space at the end of the column being overtaken (maximum look-ahead is currently fixed at 150m and overtaking may only take place if free space is found before that threshold).
  • the priority of intersections that may be passed during overtaking (only straight prioritized links may be used for opposite-direction overtaking)
  • The required safety-buffers can be calibrated using the vehicle type attribute lcOpposite
  • The number of lanes of the forward edge (only emergency vehicles will overtake through the opposite direction if they are on a multi-lane edge)

Vehicles may also stop on the opposite side by defining a <stop> with a lane index that lies to the left of the leftmost forward direction lane (i.e. index 3 if the forward edge has lane indices 0,1,2).

Limitations#

  • Visibility of oncoming traffic and the preceding vehicles due to road topology and occluding vehicles is not taken into account.
  • Neighboring lane information can only be set if both edges have the same length. As a workaround the length of the edges may be set to a custom value (which may be different from the geometrical length). This can be automated by setting the option --opposites.guess.fix-lengths.
  • Opposite-direction-driving is not compatible with the sublane model before version 1.9.0.