A case-based cost-benefit consideration for upgrading to an intelligent traffic environment

Abstract

Within the trend of transforming our daily lives into a smart form, traffic has become one of the development areas for innovators and hence researchers. While many technologies are devised or improved for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), potential impacts of ITS have also raised the interest of researchers. In line with this trend, this study conducted case-based research to identify the potential benefits of ITS implementation in the UK traffic network and to analyse its applicability from a cost-effectiveness perspective. In our analysis, we have utilised four use cases in two different road environments –urban and motorway- and analysed their efficiency in three traffic density levels. Our findings demonstrate some specific benefits like the improvement in the safety of urban roads even from the lowest level of technology penetration and also fixed and incurring costs. However, having an immature and continuously developing nature, the field requires more interest and work from researchers in many aspects to obtain further inference about potential benefits and preventable costs.