Analysis on traffic stability and capacity for mixed traffic flow with platoons of intelligent connected vehicles

Xin Chang, Haijian Li, Jian Rong, Xiaohua Zhao and Li, An’ran

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2020, vol. 557, issue C

Abstract: With the development of technology, platoons of intelligent and connected vehicles (ICVs) will join regular vehicles on roads, and the characteristics of the traffic flow will change accordingly. In this paper, the traffic flow configurations and the spatial distributions of various types of vehicles are analyzed, when the mixed traffic flow is in equilibrium. To model the mixed traffic flow with platoons of ICVs, the intelligent driver model and the PATH laboratory-calibrated cooperative adaptive cruise control model are introduced for capturing the car-following behavior in this study. Then, analytical methods for the stability and the fundamental diagram models of mixed traffic flow are developed. The results of the sensitivity analysis demonstrated that ICVs can improve the stability of the mixed traffic flow under a critical speed. However, if this critical speed is exceeded, an increase in the number of ICVs may degrade the stability of the mixed traffic flow. Moreover, this critical speed decreases as the maximum platoon size increases. In addition to stability, the results suggest that ICVs can effectively improve traffic capacity. Moreover, the study results demonstrate that a decrease in the desired time headway and an increase in the maximum platoon size are advantageous for the efficiency of the mixed flow.

Keywords: Mixed traffic flow; Connected vehicle; Penetration rate; Platoon size; Stability; Fundamental diagram (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437120304295
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:557:y:2020:i:c:s0378437120304295

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2020.124829

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().