Development and evaluation of an enhanced eco-approach traffic signal application for Connected Vehicles

The eco-approach and departure application for traffic signals has shown promising results for fuel and carbon dioxide savings. This application uses the signal phase and timing (SPaT) information from the traffic signal to better guide a driver through the signalized intersection in an environmentally-friendly way. This paper proposes an enhanced eco-approach and departure system which takes into account not only the SPaT information, but also the information from the preceding equipped vehicles using connected vehicle technology. Compared to the previously developed eco-approach algorithm which only utilizes the SPaT information, the proposed system has shown much greater network-wide benefits, especially during higher levels of congestion. The system performance has been evaluated in a series of simulation studies by varying different parameters, including congestion level, penetration rate, communication range, and communication delay.