Non-local Evasive Overtaking of Downstream Incidents in Distributed Behavior Planning of Connected Vehicles

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel communication-based control strategy for connected vehicles that effectively mitigates downstream traffic bottlenecks by encouraging lane changes that bypass delays, improving overall traffic flow.

Contribution

It introduces a new controller leveraging V2X communication to enable vehicles to proactively avoid downstream congestion, a novel approach in autonomous lane change assistance.

Findings

Successfully reduces downstream delays in simulations

Improves traffic flow efficiency across various conditions

Effective at different vehicle penetration rates

Abstract

The prevalence of high-speed vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication will likely significantly influence the future of vehicle autonomy. In several autonomous driving applications, however, the role such systems will play is seldom understood. In this paper, we explore the role of communication signals in enhancing the performance of lane change assistance systems in situations where downstream bottlenecks restrict the mobility of a few lanes. Building off of prior work on modeling lane change incentives, we design a controller that 1) encourages automated vehicles to subvert lanes in which distant downstream delays are likely to occur, while also 2) ignoring greedy local incentives when such delays are needed to maintain a specific route. Numerical results on different traffic conditions and penetration rates suggest that the model successfully subverts a significant portion of delays brought about by downstream bottlenecks, both globally and from the perspective of the controlled vehicles.