Influence of Bus Bay on Heterogeneous Traffic Flow Consisting of Human Driving and Autonomous Vehicles

Abstract

With the deployment of autonomous vehicles (AV), it can be assumed that a heterogeneous flow consisting of human driving and autonomous vehicles will appear in urban road networks. Numerous studies have shown that bus stops tend to have great influence on the nearby traffic flow, but few insightful researches have been conducted on the influence of bus bays in the context of heterogeneous traffic flow consisting of human driving vehicles and autonomous vehicles. In this paper, a new KKSW (Kerner-Klenov-Schreckeneberg-Wolf)-BB (bus bay)-AVHDV (autonomous vehicles and human driving vehicles) CA (cellular automata) model is proposed to study the influence of bus bays on heterogeneous traffic flow based on the well-known KKSW CA model. Through numerical simulations, the flow characteristics, congestion patterns and speed characteristics in the heterogeneous traffic flow are studied. The frequency and severity of rear-end collisions are analyzed to study the influence of the bus bay on traffic safety. The results show that bus bays may have a significant impact on traffic flow efficiency and traffic safety. The introduction of AVs in the heterogeneous traffic flow could significantly improve traffic efficiency and safety near the bus bay, especially under the condition of heavy traffic flow.INDEX TERMS Bus bay, bus interference, three-phase traffic theory, cellular automata model, heterogeneous traffic flow, human driving and autonomous vehicles, traffic conflict techniques