Anticipating Automated Vehicle Presence and the Effects on Interactions with Conventional Traffic and Infrastructure

Expectations are that automated and connected mobility will increase road safety and traffic efficiency. However, due to possible shortcomings of new technologies , road users may be confronted with disturbances and potential safety risks. The mitigation of such risks will bring necessary changes to road infrastructure, vehicles and road-users’ behavior. In a traffic environment that was built to fit the human perception, preemptive simulation of parametrized scenarios can provide guidelines for what changes and difficulties are to be expected. Utilizing SUMO in varied scenarios, this paper outlines the creation of virtual models that correspond to interaction hot spots on the Austrian road network from digitizing the infrastructure, to calibrating a simulation scenario with congruent traffic measurements while it concludes with the evaluation of scenario simulation results. The approach is demonstrated for a selected motorway ramp scenario, varying rates of automated vehicles and different infrastructure layouts. Performance indicators like vehicle speed distributions and traffic disruptions are defined and analyzed to investigate how adaptations can mitigate risks, influence traffic flow and hence support progressing vehicle automation.