Safety and Sustainable Development of Automated Driving in Mixed-Traffic Urban Areas—Considering Vulnerable Road Users and Network Efficiency

Journal Article (2022)
Author(s)

A.J. Pauwels (Student TU Delft)

Nadia Pourmohammad-Zia (TU Delft - Rivers, Ports, Waterways and Dredging Engineering)

Frederik Schulte (TU Delft - Transport Engineering and Logistics)

Research Group
Transport Engineering and Logistics
Copyright
© 2022 A.J. Pauwels, N. Pourmohammadzia, F. Schulte
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.3390/su142013486
More Info
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Publication Year
2022
Language
English
Copyright
© 2022 A.J. Pauwels, N. Pourmohammadzia, F. Schulte
Research Group
Transport Engineering and Logistics
Issue number
20
Volume number
14
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Abstract

Next to environmental aspects, establishing areas for safe and economically viable automated driving in mixed-traffic settings is one major challenge for sustainable development of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs). This work investigates safety in the interactions between AVs, human-driven vehicles, and vulnerable road users, including cyclists and pedestrians, within a simulated urban environment in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. New junction and pedestrian models are introduced, and virtual AVs with an occlusion-aware driving system are deployed to deliver cargo autonomously. The safety of applying this autonomous cargo delivery service is assessed using a large set of Surrogate Safety Indicators (SSIs). Furthermore, Macroscopic Fundamental Diagrams (MFDs) and travel time loss are incorporated to evaluate the network efficiency. By assessing the impact of various measures involving Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V), Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I), Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communications, infrastructure modifications, and driving behavior, we show that traffic safety and network efficiency can be achieved in a living lab setting for the considered case. Our findings further suggest that V2X gets implemented, new buildings are not placed close to intersections, and the speed limit of non-arterial roads is lowered.