Dissipation of stop-and-go waves via control of autonomous vehicles: Field experiments

• Published in: Transportation research. Part C, Emerging technologies Vol. 89; pp. 205 - 221
• Main Authors: Stern, Raphael E., Cui, Shumo, Delle Monache, Maria Laura, Bhadani, Rahul, Bunting, Matt, Churchill, Miles, Hamilton, Nathaniel, Haulcy, R’mani, Pohlmann, Hannah, Wu, Fangyu, Piccoli, Benedetto, Seibold, Benjamin, Sprinkle, Jonathan, Work, Daniel B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.04.2018; Elsevier
• Subjects: Autonomous vehicles; Computer Science; Systems and Control; Traffic control; Traffic waves; Traffic waves; Traffic control; Autonomous vehicles
• ISSN: 0968-090X; 1879-2359
• DOI: 10.1016/j.trc.2018.02.005

•Experiments on a circular track with 20+ vehicles show stop-and-go waves emerge.•Control of an autonomous vehicle can dampen stop-and-go waves in field experiments.•Control of one autonomous vehicle reduces total traffic fuel consumption.•Mobile traffic control is possible when a small fraction of vehicles are automated. Traffic waves are phenomena that emerge when the vehicular density exceeds a critical threshold. Considering the presence of increasingly automated vehicles in the traffic stream, a number of research activities have focused on the influence of automated vehicles on the bulk traffic flow. In the present article, we demonstrate experimentally that intelligent control of an autonomous vehicle is able to dampen stop-and-go waves that can arise even in the absence of geometric or lane changing triggers. Precisely, our experiments on a circular track with more than 20 vehicles show that traffic waves emerge consistently, and that they can be dampened by controlling the velocity of a single vehicle in the flow. We compare metrics for velocity, braking events, and fuel economy across experiments. These experimental findings suggest a paradigm shift in traffic management: flow control will be possible via a few mobile actuators (less than 5%) long before a majority of vehicles have autonomous capabilities.