Longitudinal driving scenarios can be roughly divided into the free flow and car-following scenarios. This paper analyzed the performances of 7 representative car-following models in free flow scenarios, based on comparing with empirical data. Extracted trajectories show that in free flow scenarios, the vehicle acceleration value is between -0.5 and 2 m/s2, and the acceleration value reaches the maximum within 3 s. Compared with the actual trajectories, no model has the best performance in all dimensions. Specifically, from the perspective of acceleration perspective, FVD and Gipps models are closer to the real trajectories, while S-K model can better represent the uncertainty in human driving behaviors. From the perspective of speed trend, both FVD, Gipps and S-K models compared with the actual situation, have good performance.

Car-following models;;Performance comparison;;Free Flow scenarios;;Empirical data