Assessing the Mobility and Environmental Benefits of Reservation-Based Intelligent Intersections Using an Integrated Simulator

The connected vehicle research program is a multimodal research initiative in the U.S. that envisions a fully connected transportation system with wireless communications linking vehicles, the infrastructure, and handheld smart devices. This paper designs and evaluates a reservation-based approach to intersection control that is designed to take full advantage of the unprecedented connectivity that the connected vehicle initiative promises to provide. The control approach, which is referred to herein as the “intelligent intersection” approach, builds on the previous work by Dresner and Stone by introducing new features to better account for several aspects of the real-world driving environment. To design and evaluate the “intelligent intersection,” a novel simulation test bed for connected vehicle applications is developed. The test bed integrates a microscopic traffic simulator with a network simulator and an emission analyzer. Using the integrated simulator, the mobility and environmental benefits of the intelligent intersection approach, compared with those of traditional control methods, are evaluated on two case studies: 1) an isolated intersection and 2) a real-world transportation network with multiple intersections. Results show that the proposed control approach offers significant mobility and environmental benefits. For example, for the second test case and using observed traffic volumes, the intelligent intersection reduced the average vehicle delay by 85%, fuel consumption by 50%, and emissions by 39%-50%. The study also demonstrates the utility of using the simulator test bed in the design and evaluation of connected vehicle applications.