Analyzing the Operational Performance of Mixed Traffic Comprising Autonomous and Human-Driven Vehicles at Varying Penetration Rates on Indian Urban Arterials

The autonomous vehicle (AV) market is in a nascent stage; as time progresses, more users will shift to AVs. This shift from conventional/human-driven vehicles (HDV) to AVs will have an impact on traffic systems in the future. Initially, the percentage of AVs will be less on the roads, but as the time and market penetration rate (MPR) progress, there could be a higher percentage of AVs on roads. Urban arterials in the Indian context are characterized by several traffic issues such as congestion, non-lane-based traffic, unsafe driving practices, etc. The traffic congestion in such urban areas will only increase going forward as the country develops, which reduces the operational performance of such traffic facilities. The shift from HDV-only traffic to mixed traffic consisting of AVs and HDVs will influence the operational performance of the arterials. The effect on operational performance due to increasing AV percentage on roads needs to be explored further to understand the implications of AVs on HDVs. Further, AVs have interesting properties such as better assertive movements than HDVs, and a higher ability to understand and comprehend complex traffic situations. This study attempts to understand the effect of increasing the MPR of AVs on the operational performance of traffic systems. A micro-simulation tool (VISSIM) is used to quantify the effects of MPR on the operational performance of urban arterials. Results show that as the market penetration of AVs increases the performance of the urban arterials improved in terms of enhanced capacity, space utilization and other microscopic characteristics.