Investigating the effect of Connected Vehicles (CVs) route guidance on mobility by microsimulation

Recent studies have shown that Connected Vehicles (CVs) can improve traffic mobility and safety while saving energy and reducing emissions. Due to the potential abilities of CVs to transform travel patterns through the creation of a safe, interoperable wireless communications network, this research follows three objectives. Initially, the gradual deployment of CVs and its effects on mobility were evaluated under 17 various CV penetration rates in the network during an incident with a 15-minute link blockage. Then, the system-wide effects of CV-equipped vehicles with route guidance features on travel time were analyzed by travel mode. Finally, the use of dynamic bus lanes (DBL) was tested through two scenarios of DBL activation intervals in the incident link to evaluate the effects of dynamic rerouting of CV cars on CV buses. A microscopic hybrid model was developed to simulate the driving behavior of CV guidance with various penetration rates of CVs. The study used travel time as a measure of service quality and the difference in travel time between CV and Non-CV cars and buses. The results showed that as the number of rerouting CV cars increases, the average travel time in rerouting paths decreases. In the network-wide analysis, 85% was found to be the optimum breakpoint of CV Market Penetration Rate (MPR) where the minimum average user’s travel time could be obtained. However, under higher network travel demand level, the breakpoint occurred at 50% CV MPR.