Influences of Single-Lane Automatic Driving Systems on Traffic Efficiency and CO2 Emissions on China’s Motorways

Abstract

There are big differences between the driving behaviors of intelligent connected vehicles (ICVs) and traditional human-driven vehicles (HVs). ICVs will be mixed with HVs on roads for a long time in the future. Different intelligent functions and different driving styles will affect the condition of traffic flow, thereby changing traffic efficiency and emissions. In this paper, we focus on China’s expressways and secondary motorways, and the impacts of the ‘single-lane automatic driving system’ (SLADS) on traffic delay, road capacity and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions were studied under different ICV penetration rates. Driving styles were regarded as important factors for scenario analysis. We found that with higher volume input, SLADS has an optimizing effect on traffic efficiency and CO2 emissions generally, which will be more significant as the ICV penetration rate increases. Additionally, enhancing the aggressiveness of driving behavior appropriately is an effective way to amplify the benefits of SLADS.