Types of Information

An SCM driver continuously perceives a large amount of information about their own vehicle, other traffic participants and the environment. This information is processed, sorted and finally stored in the driver’s mental model of the world. The following chapter aims to give an overview of the different pieces of information the model processes and remembers.

The relevant information can be thematically sorted into a number of groups as described in the following list. This division also mirrors how the internal handling of the data in the implementation is structured.

• Microscopic Information contains all state variables and parameters that can be assigned to individual objects (e.g. ego vehicle, surrounding vehicles and objects). Information about the driver themself is also included.

• Mesoscopic Information contains information regarding moving traffic which can only be obtained by viewing a group of objects (e.g. average speeds per lane).

• Infrastructure Information contains information about the traffic infrastructure; it is divided into structural properties of the roadway (e.g. lane widths, lane ends) and traffic rules (e.g. traffic signs, lane markings).

Furthermore, the model has access to a variety of user-adjustable parameters that influence the SCM driver’s behaviour. An overview for them is given in Driver Parameters.