Automated vehicles for highway operations (automated highway systems)

Considerable research effort has been devoted within the past 15 years to automating the driving of highway vehicles in order to improve their safety and efficiency of operation and to help to reduce traffic congestion. Although the highway environment is in some ways more structured than other environments in which automated vehicles have been proposed to operate, the density and complexity of road traffic still make the sensing and control problems challenging. Because highway vehicles are not ‘unmanned’ but are expected to carry passengers and to coexist with other passenger-carrying vehicles, the reliability and safety considerations in the design of their control systems are much more important than they are for vehicles that are truly unmanned. This paper reviews the progress that has been made in recent research on highway vehicle automation and indicates the important research challenges that still need to be addressed before highway automation can become an everyday reality.

Development of Virtual Automated Transit System (VATS) Software for Use in Simulation and Feasibility Analysis of BRT

The steps involved in creating automated BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) simulation software with Matlab and Simulink are explained, incorporating CVHAS (Cooperative Vehicle-Highway) Automation systems) technologies. Methods of concise and efficient route definition, realistic passenger flow simulation, engine dynamics, lateral/longitudinal control and overall program structure are suggested.

Progressive Deployment Steps Leading Toward an Automated Highway System

The most serious challenge to the credibility of highway automation as a potential solution to transportation problems has been the lack of a convincing deployment strategy. Such a strategy is needed to show how to advance, step by step, from today’s transportation system to a future system that includes automated highway systems (AHSs). The existing literature on AHS deployment is reviewed, and a set of principles that can be used to govern the design of AHS deployment strategies is suggested. A deployment sequence for AHSs is proposed, beginning with adaptive cruise control and then adding elements of vehicle-vehicle cooperation and lane protection to build toward AHS capabilities within the constraints of technological and human factors and economic feasibility. Finally, some example deployment “road maps” are shown for transit buses, heavy trucks, and light-duty passenger vehicles.