# Dissipation of stop-and-go waves via control of autonomous vehicles: Field experiments

## TL;DR

This study demonstrates through field experiments that controlling a single autonomous vehicle can effectively dampen traffic stop-and-go waves, indicating a new approach to traffic management with minimal autonomous vehicle deployment.

## Contribution

The paper provides experimental evidence that intelligent control of one autonomous vehicle can suppress traffic waves, highlighting a potential shift in traffic flow regulation strategies.

## Key findings

- Autonomous vehicle control dampens traffic waves in real-world experiments.
- Controlling less than 5% of vehicles can significantly improve traffic flow.
- Traffic flow improvements observed in velocity, braking, and fuel economy metrics.

## Abstract

Traffic waves are phenomena that emerge when the vehicular density exceeds a critical threshold. Considering the presence of increasingly automated vehicles in the traffic stream, a number of research activities have focused on the influence of automated vehicles on the bulk traffic flow. In the present article, we demonstrate experimentally that intelligent control of an autonomous vehicle is able to dampen stop-and-go waves that can arise even in the absence of geometric or lane changing triggers. Precisely, our experiments on a circular track with more than 20 vehicles show that traffic waves emerge consistently, and that they can be dampened by controlling the velocity of a single vehicle in the flow. We compare metrics for velocity, braking events, and fuel economy across experiments. These experimental findings suggest a paradigm shift in traffic management: flow control will be possible via a few mobile actuators (less than 5%) long before a majority of vehicles have autonomous capabilities.