The effect of connected automated vehicles on macroscopic fundamental diagram of freeway traffic

Abstract

This paper quantifies the effect of penetrated connected automated vehicles (CAVs) on macroscopic fundamental diagrams of mixed freeway traffic, while the impact of the variable speed limit (VSL) issued by freeway management system is also studied. The effect is introduced by penetrated CAVs which could tolerate smaller headway compared with regular human piloted vehicles (RHVs), as CAVs spend smaller response time to unexpected events. Finally, the findings are demonstrated in numerical examples for freeway traffic with different penetration rate.