Characteristic Analysis of Mixed Traffic Flow of Regular and Autonomous Vehicles Using Cellular Automata

Yangzexi Liu,John Taplin,Jingqiu Guo,Yibing Wang

doi:10.1155/2017/8142074

Abstract

The technology of autonomous vehicles is expected to revolutionize the operation of road transport systems. The penetration rate of autonomous vehicles will be low at the early stage of their deployment. It is a challenge to explore the effects of autonomous vehicles and their penetration on heterogeneous traffic flow dynamics. This paper aims to investigate this issue. An improved cellular automaton was employed as the modeling platform for our study. In particular, two sets of rules for lane changing were designed to address mild and aggressive lane changing behavior. With extensive simulation studies, we obtained some promising results. First, the introduction of autonomous vehicles to road traffic could considerably improve traffic flow, particularly the road capacity and free-flow speed. And the level of improvement increases with the penetration rate. Second, the lane-changing frequency between neighboring lanes evolves with traffic density along a fundamental-diagram-like curve. Third, the impacts of autonomous vehicles on the collective traffic flow characteristics are mainly related to their smart maneuvers in lane changing and car following, and it seems that the car-following impact is more pronounced.

Highlights

During the last decade, there has been an intensive effort to develop a variety of vehicle automation systems
This paper has studied the impact of autonomous vehicles on the characteristics of mixed traffic flow
As no autonomous vehicle is really running on roads, current investigations are mainly performed via simulation

Summary

Introduction

There has been an intensive effort to develop a variety of vehicle automation systems. This paper intends to explore the characteristics of mixed traffic flow of RVs and AVs, including capacity, fundamental diagram, and lane-changing frequency. At the core of our CA-based mesoscopic traffic simulation model are two specific sets of lane-changing rules for AVs and RVs. One major goal of this research is to determine the AV impact on lane-changing frequency of all involved vehicles. One major goal of this research is to determine the AV impact on lane-changing frequency of all involved vehicles For this reason, a brief literature review on the study of lane changing is presented below.

Modeling

Numerical Simulation and Result Analysis

40 Lane 1

Findings

Conclusions