Quantitative Studies on Traffic Efficiency and Safety Variation Trend of Mixed Traffic Flow with Different Penetration Rates of Automated Vehicles

Traffic mixed with manual vehicles (MVs) and automated vehicles (AVs) will eventually occur. While quantitative analysis of variation trend of penetration rate affecting traffic efficiency and safety is insufficient. This paper studies the influence of typical factors on the mixed traffic flow by extensive simulation experiments. In particular, with VISSIM, the trend of traffic efficiency with the change of AVs’ penetration rate is discussed. An intelligent driver model (IDM) and classic psycho-physiological following model Wiedemann99 are introduced to describe the characteristics of AVs and MVs, respectively. The influence on traffic safety is studied with different time headways, which is a parameter in IDM model parameters. Simulation results illustrate that under the condition of low penetration rate of AVs, the traffic efficiency will increase. When AVs’ penetration rate reaches the peak, the traffic efficiency can increase by 40%. The introduction of AVs will improve the traffic efficiency of mixed traffic flow.