Traffic Control and Traffic Management in a Transportation System with Autonomous Vehicles

Abstract

This paper aims to quantify the effects of autonomous driving on the traffic management level. This involves developing a model of autonomous driving that makes it possible to use human-controlled and autonomous vehicles with only minor modifications. This is important with regard to defining how the instruments of traffic management need to be developed in the future to enable them to handle autonomous vehicles in the transportation system. Of particular interest in this context is mixed traffic, in which normal and autonomously driving vehicles interact with each other. This will presumably be the normal state of affairs on roads for quite some time even after the introduction of autonomous vehicles; it is, therefore, of great practical significance to gain a good understanding of precisely this situation to predict and prevent any systemic effects that may occur.