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This study develops a trajectory-based framework to measure game-theoretic structures in real-world vehicle interactions, addressing the lack of systematic examination of temporal assumptions in existing models. By analyzing six diverse trajectory datasets, the authors identify significant proportions of concurrent and sequential behavioral changes in vehicle interactions, revealing that stable ordering is more common than alternating ordering. The findings challenge the notion that temporal precedence is sufficient for characterizing behavioral dependence, suggesting that different game-theoretic models serve as complementary rather than universal frameworks for understanding vehicle interactions.
Real-world vehicle interactions reveal that stable ordering often dominates over alternating roles, challenging traditional game-theoretic assumptions.
Game-theoretic models provide principled frameworks for modeling vehicle interactions, but their underlying temporal assumptions have not been systematically examined against real-world driving behavior. In particular, it remains unclear how simultaneous, sequential, and asymmetric interaction structures can be measured from vehicle trajectories. This paper develops a trajectory-based interaction measurement framework to identify interaction events and quantify behavioral change onset, temporal organization, post-onset response dynamics, and ordering stability. The framework uses behavioral deviations to verify candidate interactions. We evaluate the framework on six real-world trajectory datasets, including INTERACTION, highD, inD, rounD, Waymo Open Motion, and nuPlan, covering diverse road geometries, traffic environments, and interaction types. The results show that concurrent and sequential behavioral changes both constitute substantial proportions of observed following, merging, and conflicting interactions. Among sequential interactions, stable ordering is more prevalent than alternating ordering, indicating that persistent asymmetric roles are a common interaction structure. Importantly, temporal precedence does not necessarily coincide with a measurable behavioral response, indicating that temporal ordering alone may not be sufficient to characterize behavioral dependence. These findings show that real-world interactions exhibit concurrent, sequential, and persistently ordered temporal structures. Different game-theoretic formulations are therefore better regarded as complementary modeling abstractions for different interaction regimes rather than as a universal structure governing all vehicle interactions.
