An experimental field test of an intelligent, interactive system that provides recommendations to drivers on lane changes, speed, and headway adjustments found that 100% compliance could reduce travel time by up to 49%
Nationwide, Netherlands
A Smart Highway: Real-time Individual Driving Recommendations Displayed On The Road Surface
Summary Information
Many traffic jams occur spontaneously due to small fluctuations in speed by one or two vehicles then snowballing to impact all of the vehicles behind them. Some current in-vehicle technologies can help eliminate these spontaneous jams, including adaptive cruise control, but may only be available at higher trim levels or on luxury cars that are inaccessible to many people. This research explores a system that obtains data through the use of cameras and natural image processing to track each vehicle on the road and assesses their speed, location, and other behavior. Based on this data, the system uses mats placed on the road lanes to display advice, making traffic flow information and solutions available to drivers regardless of how well individual vehicles are equipped.
Benefits
Using an algorithm proposed in prior research, the researchers in this study believe that travel time delay could be reduced by up to 49-percent with full driver compliance. Given the in-road displays and the universal ability for drivers to abide by them, it is expected that compliance would be high.
However, the system proposed is currently cost prohibitive. A similar system that merely collects data and pushes it through an API may also be helpful, but the penetration rate not as high.
