The aim of this project was to develop a lane-change scenario for driving simulators to analyse the characteristics of lane-change manoeuvres performed with heavy vehicles.

The definition of the lane-change scenario was based on a literature review, and an investigation of lane-change accidents in Sweden.

A lane-change manoeuvre is in the literature typically described by accepted gap at the initiation of the manoeuvre as well as duration of the manoeuvre and speed during the manoeuvre. The literature review showed that there is a lack of real-world data regarding lane-change manoeuvres with heavy vehicles. The data that exist are collected mainly in the US and for discretionary lane changes, and a distinction between sizes of heavy vehicles is rarely made. Regarding accidents involving heavy vehicles on European level, there is a general lack of useful and reliable accident data. The most comprehensive data are available from the US and show that lane-change accidents account for a large share of accidents involving heavy vehicles.

The investigation of lane-change accidents was made in the Swedish Traffic Accident Data Acquisition (STRADA), on 10 500 police-reported accidents with heavy vehicles involved during the years 2003 to 2013. In STRADA, lane-change accidents are categorized together with overtaking accidents. Therefore, it is not possible to identify lane-change accidents and their share of heavyvehicle accidents directly from STRADA. Instead, lane-change accidents were identified by reading the accident narratives for overtaking accident and rear-end accidents (in total 5 612 accidents). Rearend accidents were included because the manner of collision may resemble lane-change collisions.