Samimi Abianeh, Arezoo (2020-07). An Assessment of Impacts of Connected Vehicles on Traffic Operation and Fuel Consumption. Doctoral Dissertation.
Thesis
Connected vehicle technology has the potential to improve the performance of the transportation system. The real-time traffic information communicated between connected vehicles and infrastructure enables a more efficient management and use of the transportation system. This new technology equips vehicles to receive real-time information from their surroundings, which can warn them of approaching congestion. The emergence of connected vehicles that facilitate data exchange among vehicles and infrastructure has the potential to improve mobility, increase safety, and reduce the harmful environmental impacts of travel. Unfortunately, most of the studies that evaluate the impacts of connected vehicle technology focus only on highway performance. Moreover, these studies often ignore the impacts of uncertainties and unpredictable factors in evaluating the connected environment performance. One of these uncertainties is the behavior of travelers. Unlike the autonomous vehicles' user, the driver of a connected vehicle has decision making power. This technology helps the users to make more informed decisions by providing real-time traffic information of the roads on their path. However, the users' acceptance rate in response to the given information is still a significant parameter affecting the overall performance of the transportation system. In order to address the questions concerning the impacts of travelers' willingness to comply with the provided information, this research examined travelers' responses to the real-time rerouting information provided through connected vehicle technology and its impact. An internet-based survey was employed to investigate the impacts of different factors such as socio-economic characteristics, time saving, visibility of congestion, and the length of the trip on drivers' willingness to follow the rerouting information. A total of 1881 complete responses were collected from a random nationwide sample of people living in small and medium-sized metropolitan areas (SMMAs). The results of the study indicated the importance of trip and socio-economic characteristics of users on their willingness to follow the rerouting advice. Comparison of the probability of the results of the study demonstrated a higher percentage of acceptance to the received information from connected vehicles compared to dynamic message signs and other similar technologies. The research goal was to investigate the impacts of communication technology on the transportation system. There are three types of simulation frameworks in evaluating the network performance: microscopic, mesoscopic and macroscopic simulation models. Due to the significant effects of individual travelers on network performance, the microscopic simulation model is more appropriate. Most of the studies in this area focus on the highways or a small network. However, an accurate microsimulation model with different types of roads is required to be able to generalize the results for the real-world applications. To this end, Simulation of Urban Mobility (SUMO) is combined with Traffic Control Interface (TraCI) to create the network and conduct the study on the impacts of connected vehicles on traffic operation and fuel consumption in a large portion of the city of El Paso, Texas. The main objective of this study was to investigate the effects of providing the real-time information to the connected vehicles from two perspectives: traffic operation and fuel consumption. Different rerouting algorithms including rerouting based on 1. The real travel time information, 2. Energy (fuel) consumption, 3. Average travel time and 4. The modified travel time with its variance were used to determine the effectiveness of different methodologies for rerouting and to investigate the network performance under these scenarios. Moreover, sensitivity analysis was carried out to assess the effects of important factors in the connected environment such as market penetration rate, drive
