EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE INTERACTION BETWEEN AUTOMATED VEHICLES AND HUMAN DRIVERS: CASE STUDY OF COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL (ACC)

Automated vehicles (AVs) are becoming more common each day as car manufacturers have started to include advanced driving assistant systems (ADAS) in trendline models. The most basic level of vehicle automation includes Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) can disrupt and change traffic flow. The current study proposes the development of controlled experiments to obtain traffic flow properties for vehicles equipped with ACC in different scenarios. As part of this dissertation, the effects of ACC on capacity are quantified at steady state conditions, meaning cruising speeds or free flow, and at bottlenecks, where speed fluctuations occur. The effects of ACC on traffic flow properties are also assessed by the construction and study of the Fundamental Diagram. Lastly, the vehicles are submitted to less predictable deceleration scenarios that involve a leading vehicle driven in ACC mode and a leading vehicle driven manually. The reaction of ACC for these cases is documented.