Impact of Distributed Routing of Intelligent Vehicles on Urban Traffic

TL;DR

This study investigates how distributed dynamic routing for connected autonomous vehicles affects urban traffic performance, showing that higher market penetration rates of CAVs improve speed, reduce travel time, and increase throughput in congested networks.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the positive effects of increasing CAV market penetration on urban traffic efficiency through agent-based simulation.

Findings

Higher CAV market penetration improves average speed.

Increased CAVs reduce mean travel time.

Traffic throughput increases with more CAVs.

Abstract

The impact of distributed dynamic routing with different market penetration rates (MPRs) of connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs) and congestion levels has been investigated on urban streets. Downtown Toronto network is studied in an agent-based traffic simulation. The higher the MPRs of CAVs--especially in the case of highly congested urban networks--the higher the average speed, the lower the mean travel time, and the higher the throughput.