Title: Traffic Control in the Era of Connected Automated Vehicles

Speaker: Dr. Ali Hajbabaie

Date: Friday, July 30, 2021

Connected automated vehicles (CAVs) are expected to bring significant changes to how we travel and how traffic control devices operate. It is hypothesized that traffic lights may become obsolete and can be removed from intersections when all vehicles are both connected and automated. Some changes in traffic light systems may be necessary to accommodate the transition to a road system in which all vehicles are automated, and this means changing a technology that has been around for more than 100 years. In this talk, we introduce a new traffic control paradigm: using automated vehicles as mobile traffic controllers in cooperation with traffic signal controllers. In this concept, automated vehicles can create groups of human-driven vehicles, negotiate the right of way with each other, and navigate human-driven vehicles through the intersection during a new phase called the white phase. This happens only when enough automated vehicles are present in the intersection neighborhood, otherwise, typical green, yellow, and red phases are used. The simulation analysis has been very promising, and the new paradigm resulted in total delay reductions ranging from 7 percent to 96 percent when the automated vehicle market penetration rate increases from 10 percent up to 100 percent. This talk will also cover controlling CAVs in roundabouts and signal-free intersections.