What do autonomous vehicles mean to traffic congestion and crash? : Network traffic flow modeling and simulation for autonomous vehicles.

PDFTech ReportContract No. DTRT12GUTG11Autonomous land vehiclesAdvanced vehicle control systemsIntelligent vehiclesTraffic flowVehicle to vehicle communicationsMobile communication systemsVehicle to roadside communicationsUnited StatesUniversity Transportation Centers Program (U.S.)Qian, SeanYang, ShuguanCarnegie-Mellon UniversityUniversity of PennsylvaniaUniversity Transportation Centers Program (U.S.)US Transportation CollectionTransportation infrastructure is quickly moving towards revolutionary changes toaccommodate the deployment of AVs. On the other hand, the transition to newvehicle technologies will be shaped in large part by changes in performance ofroadway infrastructure. This research aims at understanding the relationshipbetween AV technology and infrastructure performance, which leads torevolutionary change in transportation infrastructure design in the both short andlong term.For nearly a century, traffic flow in the roadway networks is operated purely byhuman beings. Human\ue2\u20ac\u2122s reactions to preceding vehicles and side vehicles almostdominate the driving behavior, which is to be replaced by vehicleautomation/communication in the future. The technology for autonomous andconnected vehicles is rapidly approaching the point of commercialimplementation. AVs are cars that can be fully controlled by computers, instead ofpeople, relying upon on-board advanced sensors and computers to observe andinterpret road conditions and determine a safe course of action. Connectedvehicles, on the other hand, receive data from other vehicles, or a central system,that then instructs them how to operate safely. Generally there is a significantdevelopmental overlap between the two, with future autonomous connectedvehicles able to receive data from itself, other cars and systems, and capable ofdriving themselves or accepting control from external systems. With an assignedtime and path, these lightweight, self-guided cars would proceed steadily throughcrowded infrastructure without all the stop-and-go that chokes roadways and sapsfuel efficiency. Many of the enabling technologies, such as adaptive cruise controland lane departure warning systems, already exist. We envision that the pathwaysof AV and connected vehicle development are likely to converge in the long run.This research uses \ue2\u20ac\u2dcautonomous vehicle (AV)\ue2\u20ac\u2122 to represent \ue2\u20ac\u2dcautonomous connectedvehicle\ue2\u20ac\u2122