Evaluating mobility and sustainability benefits of cooperative adaptive cruise control using agent-based modeling approach

With the advent of Connected Vehicles technology, a combination of a suite of technologies and applications that use wireless communications between vehicles, Cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC), as an extension of ACC based on Connected Vehicles technology, becomes a very promising technology to solve traffic congestion. By measuring the distance to and exchange information with the prior and surrounding vehicles, the equipped vehicles will maintain a closer distance with ones ahead and operate with each other in a more coordinated way. This paper focuses not only the impact of CACC on traffic flow characteristics, such as average delay, stop-and-go patterns, average travel time and average speed, but also on the sustainability improvement, such as reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions. The CACC is studied on single lane and then an intersection, simulating both on highways and arterials. Different market penetration of CACC is also simulated. This study shows that CACC can help to annul the stop-and-go happens in both light and heavy traffic; CACC can help to reduce emissions in light traffic; the market penetration of CACC has no big impact on the mobility unless the penetration rate reaches 100%; CACC should operate under the intersection without traffic light and it will help to reduce the number of stopping vehicles and CACC can help the traffic recover more quickly from incidents.