Implications of user and system optimum based traffic control considering autonomous fleets

In transportation modeling, after defining a road network and its origin-destination (OD) matrix, the next important question is how to assign traffic among OD-pairs. In our days, the technology of advanced traveler information systems (ATIS) makes it possible to realize the “user-optimal” solution. At the same time, with the advent of the Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) it is possible to solve the traffic assignment problem in “system-optimal” way. The difference in transportation performance between user-optimal and system-optimal principles is discussed in the paper. The main purpose of this research is to investigate what are the implications of the user and system optimal traffic assignment considering the autonomous vehicle fleets.