| Summary: | This research develops and evaluates an Advanced Traveler Information System (ATIS) model using a Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication system (referred to as the GATIS-V2V model) with the off-the-shelf microscopic simulation model, VISSIM. The GATIS-V2V model is tested on notional small traffic networks (non-signalized and signalized) and a 6X6 typical urban grid network (signalized traffic network). The GATIS-V2V model consists of three key modules: vehicle communication, on-board travel time database management, and a Dynamic Route Guidance System (DRGS). In addition, the system performance has been enhanced by applying three complementary functions: Autonomous Automatic Incident Detection (AAID), a minimum sample size algorithm, and a simple driver behavior model. To select appropriate parameter ranges for the complementary functions a sensitivity analysis has been conducted. The GATIS-V2V performance has been investigated relative to three underlying system parameters: traffic flow, communication radio range, and penetration ratio of participating vehicles. Lastly, the enhanced GATIS-V2V model is compared with the centralized traffic information system.
This research found that the enhanced GATIS-V2V model outperforms the basic model in terms of travel time savings and produces more consistent and robust system output under non-recurrent traffic states (i.e., traffic incident) in the simple traffic network. This research also identified that the traffic incident detection time and driver's route choice rule are the most crucial factors influencing the system performance. As expected, as traffic flow and penetration ratio increase, the system becomes more efficient, with non-participating vehicles also benefiting from the re-routing of participating vehicles. The communication radio ranges considered were found not to significantly influence system operations in the studied traffic network. Finally, it is found that the decentralized GATIS-V2V model has similar performance to the centralized model even under low flow, short radio range, and low penetration ratio cases. This implies that a dynamic infrastructure-based traffic information system could replace a fixed infrastructure-based traffic information system, allowing for considerable savings in fixed costs and ready expansion of the system off of the main network corridors.
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