Provided is a system and method that can control a merge of an autonomous vehicle when other vehicles are present on the road. In one example, the method may include iteratively estimating a series of values associated with one or more vehicles in an adjacent lane with respect to an ego vehicle, identifying a trend associated with the one or more vehicles from the iteratively estimated series of values, determining merge intentions of the one or more vehicles with respect to the ego vehicle based on the identified trend over time, verifying the merge intentions against a simulated change in the trend, selecting a merge position of the ego vehicle with respect to the one or more vehicles within the lane based on the verified merge intentions, and executing an instruction to cause the ego vehicle to perform a merge operation based on the selected merge position.