Autonomous vehicles and mixed traffic flows for the dissipation of stop-and-go waves in multi-lane ring roads

Abstract

In this work, we use the Bando-FTL microscopic traffic model with the Treiber et al. lane changing mechanism to describe the movements of vehicles in a multi-lane ring road, and the PΔP model to quantify vehicular fuel consumption. We are interested in contributing to giving a better understanding of multi-lane road traffic systems. In a first part of the work, we prove that multi-lane traffic systems are very sensitive to lane changing parameters; and that it is possible to dissipate stop-and-go waves, in multi-lane traffic flows of aggressive cars, by introducing a single autonomous vehicle following a prescribed acceleration law in high congestion, and obtain a reduction in vehicular energy consumption of up to 75%. In a second part, we show that, in multi-lane traffic flows of collaborative and aggressive cars, in contrast with single-lane systems, a proportion of collaborative cars as low as 22% can be effective to smooth stop-and-go waves. Finally, in a third part, we study a multi-lane traffic system where coexist trucks (long heavy weight vehicles) with aggressive cars, and we show that a proportion of 29% of trucks can be efficient to dissipate stop-and-go waves.