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On two-lane roads, passing maneuvers are a complicated task that has important implications on traffic flow and safety. Two-lane rural highways constitute substantial percentage of the total roads length in Israel. On average about 20% of the fatal accidents on Israeli rural road sections are head-on accidents. This study investigates drivers´ passing behavior and develops safety related models for two-lane rural highways. Several factors that affect passing behavior, such as the infrastructure, traffic and drivers´ characteristics, were taken into account. Given the difficulty in collecting real world data the approach of this study was to investigate passing behavior using an interactive driving simulator in a laboratory environment. Several scenarios which illustrate different rural two-lane road sections with different geometric and traffic conditions were examined. The methodology developed in this study was composed of: survey design and data collection, passing gap model formulation and estimation, and risk-taking model development. These models enhance the understanding of drivers passing behavior on two- lane highways.

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Haneen Farah is a Research Associate at the Department of Transport and Economics, the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH. She received a Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering from Technion, Israel in 2009. Her research interests are in traffic safety, driver behavior modeling, road geometric design and intelligent transportation systems.

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