A vehicle control system includes: a detection section that detects a presence and state of any nearby vehicles traveling in the vicinity of a vehicle; a speed generation section that generates a target speed of the vehicle based on a state of a benchmark vehicle from out of the nearby vehicles whose presence and state have been detected by the detection section, the benchmark vehicle being closest to the vehicle in a direction of progress from out of a first vehicle traveling ahead of the vehicle in a current lane in which the vehicle is traveling or a second vehicle traveling ahead of the vehicle in an adjacent lane adjacent to the current lane; and a travel control section that automatically controls at least acceleration and deceleration of the vehicle based on the target speed generated by the speed generation section.