Modelling Uptake Sensitivities of Connected and Automated Vehicle Technologies

Connected and automated vehicle (CAV) technologies and services are rapidly developing and have the potential to revolutionise the transport systems. However, like many innovations, the uptake pathways are uncertain. The focus of this article is on improving understanding of factors that may affect the uptake of highly and fully automated vehicles, with a particular interest in the role of the internet of things (IoT). Using system dynamic modelling, sensitivity testing towards vehicle attributes (e.g., comfort, safety, familiarity) is carried out and scenarios were developed to explore how CAV uptake can vary under different conditions based around the quality of IoT provision. Utility and poor IoT are found to have the biggest influence. Attention is then given to CAV ‘services' that are characterized by the attributes explored earlier in the paper, and it is found that they could contribute to a 20% increase in market share

Situational Awareness Enhancement for Connected and Automated Vehicle Systems

Recent developments in the area of Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) have boosted the interest in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs). While ITS is intended to resolve and mitigate serious traffic issues such as passenger and pedestrian fatalities, accidents, and traffic congestion; these goals are only achievable by vehicles that are fully aware of their situation and surroundings in real-time. Therefore, connected and automated vehicle systems heavily rely on communication technologies to create a real-time map of their surrounding environment and extend their range of situational awareness. In this dissertation, we propose novel approaches to enhance situational awareness, its applications, and effective sharing of information among vehicles.;The communication technology for CAVs is known as vehicle-to-everything (V2x) communication, in which vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) have been targeted for the first round of deployment based on dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) devices for vehicles and road-side transportation infrastructures. Wireless communication among these entities creates self-organizing networks, known as Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs). Due to the mobile, rapidly changing, and intrinsically error-prone nature of VANETs, traditional network architectures are generally unsatisfactory to address VANETs fundamental performance requirements. Therefore, we first investigate imperfections of the vehicular communication channel and propose a new modeling scheme for large-scale and small-scale components of the communication channel in dense vehicular networks. Subsequently, we introduce an innovative method for a joint modeling of the situational awareness and networking components of CAVs in a single framework. Based on these two models, we propose a novel network-aware broadcast protocol for fast broadcasting of information over multiple hops to extend the range of situational awareness. Afterward, motivated by the most common and injury-prone pedestrian crash scenarios, we extend our work by proposing an end-to-end Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P) framework to provide situational awareness and hazard detection for vulnerable road users. Finally, as humans are the most spontaneous and influential entity for transportation systems, we design a learning-based driver behavior model and integrate it into our situational awareness component. Consequently, higher accuracy of situational awareness and overall system performance are achieved by exchange of more useful information

Connected and Automated Vehicle Technology: Business and Regulatory Issues

A program for December 2017 Problem Solving Initiative at the University of Michigan Law School on the topic of automated vehicle technology. Implementing “Level 3” automation (i.e., the driving mode in which an automated driving system performs the driving task until the human driver is asked to take over) is a significant legal/regulatory, technological, and business challenge. Many issues are presented: How do we assess the costs and benefits of Level 3 automation? How does one address the car to human driver “handoff?” What type of licensing and training of the human driver should be required? What will prevent the human driver from being lulled into overreliance on the car? How should the government regulate this space to balance safety concerns with the desire to encourage innovation? Should there be standardization of Level 3 vehicle systems so human drivers have common expectations and experiences as they transition among different cars? Some industry participants believe the challenges posed by Level 3 are intractable and have chosen to skip to Level 4 (full automation), while others believe it is necessary to gain experience with Level 3 in order to transition to full automation successfully. This semester, students were tasked with developing solutions for the challenges presented by Level 3 automation

Situation-Aware Left-Turning Connected and Automated Vehicle Operation at Signalized Intersections

One challenging aspect of the Connected and Automated Vehicle (CAV) operation in mixed traffic is the development of a situation-awareness module for CAVs. While operating on public roads, CAVs need to assess their surroundings, especially the intentions of non-CAVs. Generally, CAVs demonstrate a defensive driving behavior, and CAVs expect other non-autonomous entities on the road will follow the traffic rules or common driving behavior. However, the presence of aggressive human drivers in the surrounding environment, who may not follow traffic rules and behave abruptly, can lead to serious safety consequences. In this paper, we have addressed the CAV and non-CAV interaction by evaluating a situation-awareness module for left-turning CAV operations in an urban area. Existing literature does not consider the intent of the following vehicle for a CAVs left-turning movement, and existing CAV controllers do not assess the following non-CAVs intents. Based on our simulation study, the situation-aware CAV controller module reduces up to 27% of the abrupt braking of the following non-CAVs for scenarios with different opposing through movement compared to the base scenario with the autonomous vehicle, without considering the following vehicles intent. The analysis shows that the average travel time reductions for the opposite through traffic volumes of 600, 800, and 1000 vehicle/hour/lane are 58%, 52%, and 62%, respectively, for the aggressive human driver following the CAV if the following vehicles intent is considered by a CAV in making a left turn at an intersection