Adaptive advisory speed limit dissemination using vehicular communication

Abstract

Variable speed limits (VSLs) have been investigated for decades to modify the speed limit based on the prevailing road circumstances. VSLs have increasingly reaped attention as a means to enhance road traffic safety. In this study pros and cons of the VSL systems, and factors that affect on VSL impacts is summarized. Despite the potential effectiveness of utilizing VSLs, the success of this system is impacted by several factors such as VSL strategy used and the level of driver compliance. It is found that the level of driver compliance could be depends on vehicles' safety capabilities. Therefore, we have introduced an Adaptive Advisory Speed Limit Dissemination (AASLD) architecture which uses a novel VSL control strategy to ameliorate driver compliance with speed limits. The current speed limit determine based upon the vehicle safety capabilities (e.g. vehicle type, size, weight, safety features) in addition to traffic and road conditions. The simulation results showed prominently that AASLD improves traffic flow efficiency and occupancy. In addition, the results demonstrate that utilization of Vehicular ad-hoc network technology in AASLD has evidently reduced the incident detection time up to 31.2 percent and appliance of safe speed limit in comparison with traditional VSL strategies.