Networking makes the difference: why autonomous driving can increase driving times.
A new study shows that connected vehicles that share data wirelessly can significantly reduce driving times at intersections. But what about the but automated vehicles that are not connected? They can actually increase travel time at intersections.
A lot of research shows that automated vehicles Security can improve. But recent research from North Carolina State University—based on computational modeling—suggests that reducing travel time won’t be possible with autonomous vehicles alone. It needs vehicles that are able to communicate with each other and with the traffic control systems to communicate that will improve the flow of traffic at intersections.
For the study, the researchers used a computational model that simulates traffic conditions. Researchers considered four vehicle types: Human Driver Vehicles (HVs), Connected But Manually Controlled Vehicles (CVs), Automated Vehicles (AVs), and Connected Automated Vehicles (CAVs).
Autonomous cars drive more cautiously compared to humans. Part of their safety comes from being conservatively programmed. CVs and CAVs are designed to receive information about the future state of traffic lights and adjust their speeds to avoid stopping at intersections. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that CVs and CAVs move more smoothly—and stop less often—than HVs and AVs.
Researchers ran 57 traffic simulations to assess the impact of different variables on travel time at an intersection. For example, they investigated how traffic could be influenced by different combinations of HVs, AVs, CVs and CAVs.
A clear result was that the higher the percentage of CVs and CAVs, the greater the crossing capacity. In other words, when more vehicles were connected on the road, more vehicles could flow through the intersection faster. Higher capacity also means that, on average, fewer vehicles are waiting at a red light.
Increasing the number of AVs without Networking, also increases the stay at the intersection. This is probably due to their careful driving style to avoid collisions.