University Transportation Centers Program (U.S.)

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Transportation infrastructure is quickly moving towards revolutionary changes to

accommodate the deployment of AVs. On the other hand, the transition to new

vehicle technologies will be shaped in large part by changes in performance of

roadway infrastructure. This research aims at understanding the relationship

between AV technology and infrastructure performance, which leads to

revolutionary change in transportation infrastructure design in the both short and

long term.

For nearly a century, traffic flow in the roadway networks is operated purely by

human beings. Human’s reactions to preceding vehicles and side vehicles almost

dominate the driving behavior, which is to be replaced by vehicle

automation/communication in the future. The technology for autonomous and

connected vehicles is rapidly approaching the point of commercial

implementation. AVs are cars that can be fully controlled by computers, instead of

people, relying upon on-board advanced sensors and computers to observe and

interpret road conditions and determine a safe course of action. Connected

vehicles, on the other hand, receive data from other vehicles, or a central system,

that then instructs them how to operate safely. Generally there is a significant

developmental overlap between the two, with future autonomous connected

vehicles able to receive data from itself, other cars and systems, and capable of

driving themselves or accepting control from external systems. With an assigned

time and path, these lightweight, self-guided cars would proceed steadily through

crowded infrastructure without all the stop-and-go that chokes roadways and saps

fuel efficiency. Many of the enabling technologies, such as adaptive cruise control

and lane departure warning systems, already exist. We envision that the pathways

of AV and connected vehicle development are likely to converge in the long run.

This research uses ‘autonomous vehicle (AV)’ to represent ‘autonomous connected

vehicle’.

US Transportation Collection

Contract No. DTRT12GUTG11