Performance Analyses of Information-Based Managed Lane Choice Decisions in a Connected Vehicle Environment

Abstract

Connected vehicle (CV) technology can connect, communicate, and share information between vehicles, infrastructure, and other traffic management systems. Recent research has examined and promoted CV and connected automated vehicle (CAV) technology on managed lane systems to increase capacity and reduce congestion, as managed lane systems could be equipped with advanced infrastructure relatively quickly. However, the effect on travel considering, information-based managed lane choice decisions in a CV environment is not clear. Therefore, this research analyzed the potential effects on a managed lane system with connected vehicles considering several travel behavior elements, including drivers’ willingness to reroute and their choice of managed lanes based on individual travel time savings. This study analyzed the potential effects on a managed lane system by assigning different market penetration rates (0%, 10%, 50%, 100%) of CVs and informing CV drivers about travel time savings for a 10-mi stretch at 5-min intervals. How the traffic performance measurements (i.e., throughput, travel time saving, average speed and average travel time) vary under different market penetration rates of CVs is then investigated. Two major conclusions are reached: (i) although information exchange was assumed to be instantaneous between vehicles and the system, there existed a response time (or time delay) in the macroscopic traffic reflection; (ii) managed lane use may decrease, when travel time information becomes available, since drivers perceive they are saving more travel time than they actually do save.