Potential impact of autonomous vehicles in mixed traffic from simulation using real traffic flow

Abstract

This work focuses on the potential impacts of the autonomous vehicles in a mixed traffic condition represented in traffic simulator Simulation of Urban MObility (SUMO) with real traffic flow. Specifically, real traffic flow and speed data collected in 2002 and 2019 in Gothenburg were used to simulate daily flow variation in SUMO. In order to predict the most likely drawbacks during the transition from a traffic consisting only manually driven vehicles to a traffic consisting only fully-autonomous vehicles, this study focuses on mixed traffic with different percentages of autonomous and manually driven vehicles. To realize this aim, several parameters of the car following and lane change models of autonomous vehicles are investigated in this paper. Along with the fundamental diagram, the number of lane changes and the number of conflicts are analyzed and studied as measures for improving road safety and efficiency. The study highlights that the autonomous vehicles’ features that improve safety and efficiency in 100% autonomous and mixed traffic are different, and the ability of autonomous vehicles to switch between mixed and autonomous driving styles, and vice versa depending on the scenario, is necessary.