Enhancing transportation accessibility: evaluating the impact of route guidance systems and connected autonomous vehicles

Enhancing accessibility in transportation systems is an escalating interest among researchers, fueled by the rising issues with traffic congestion and technological innovations. Accessibility significantly contributes to improving the quality of life, thereby necessitating an examination of how route guidance systems impact it. This study explores the influence of system optimum (SO) and user equilibrium (UE) route guidance systems on accessibility, particularly in the context of connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs) embedded in the network. We employ a hybrid assignment model that enables the concurrent allocation of SO and UE assignments, along with the Gravity model to compute accessibility. The Sioux Falls network, previously leveraged in prior research, was chosen for numerical simulations to permit insightful comparisons. Our study scrutinizes three scenarios: the first scenario examines the repercussions of route guidance systems on human-driven vehicles, while the second and third assess their effects on CAVs. The difference between the second and third scenario is in the way of increasing the capacity in the assignment. Our findings reveal that at lower penetration rates of route guidance systems, accessibility initially dips, and then ascends. When all human-driven users adopt route guidance systems, accessibility increases by 12.75% compared to the initial state (without any intervention). Remarkably, should all users employ autonomous vehicles, accessibility would surge by 220% compared to the initial state (without any intervention). These insights highlight the importance of integrating CAVs and route guidance systems into transportation planning to enhance accessibility and improve the quality of life.