Simulation Study Found Platooning Automated Vehicles in Urban Traffic Reduced Queue Lengths by up to 57 Percent.
Turkish Simulation Study Evaluated the Mobility Effects of Mixed Automated Vehicle Fleet.
Ankara
Integrating Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) into Urban Traffic: Simulating Driving and Signal Control
Summary Information
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) present the potential to make roads safer, ease congestion, and promote more sustainable travel. This study focused on how different AV driving styles, cautious, normal, aggressive, and platooning affected traffic when combined with various traffic signal timings. The study simulated a traffic intersection by combining both AVs and human-driven cars across 21 different scenarios in an urban setting with heavy congestion in Ankara, Turkey.
METHODOLOGY
The study used microscopic traffic simulation software to model different AVs and human driver behaviors. A four-way traffic intersection in Ankara, Turkey during the morning peak hour (7:00–8:00 AM) was selected as the study area. Traffic volume counts, vehicle speeds, queue lengths, and travel times were gathered through video recordings and manual data extraction, covering more than 5,000 vehicles. These real-world data were used to calibrate and validate the simulation model. The evaluation focused on traffic performance metrics such as queue lengths, travel times, and delays, which were compared across 21 scenarios with AV penetration rates from 25 to 100 percent, and signal cycle times from 60 to 204 seconds.
FINDINGS
- At 60 second cycle time, aggressive and platooning AVs at 100 percent penetration rate reduced queue lengths by up to 56.62 percent.
- The same settings led to an up to 21.15 percent reduction in travel times, and reduced vehicle delays by up to 27.59 percent.
- At 60 second cycle time, normal AVs mitigated extremes in traffic behaviors by reducing delays and queue lengths by up to 15.26 and 33.91 percent, respectively.
- In mixed AV environments with the four behavioral types, at 60 second cycle time, queue lengths were reduced between 14.34 and 38.82 percent, and vehicle delays had a decrease ranging from 0.85 to 16.98 percent.
