The Effect of Optimization Strategy and Adoption Rate on V2X Technology Environmental Impact

Vehicle to infrastructure technology, V2X, promises to allow the communication between vehicles and infrastructure, and vehicles to vehicles. One communication option is Traffic Light to Vehicle Communication (TLVC) which transmits traffic light schedules to vehicles. Research has shown that traffic light schedules can be used by vehicles to minimize their environmental impact when traversing through the traffic lights by facilitating the calculation of optimal speed and acceleration/deceleration recommendations. Existing research has concentrated on determining the optimal actions of a single vehicle. However, the actions that may be optimal for a single vehicle may impede the optimal actions of the vehicles travelling around them. Furthermore, a system with individual vehicles operating without regard for the other vehicles around them may lead to sub-optimal system performance. When trying to design a system to minimize vehicle emissions from all vehicles in the system three questions naturally arise:(1) What is the system level benefit of coordinating vehicle responses to traffic light signals? (2) What is the impact / tradeoff to individual drivers when they participate in a coordinated system level optimization? (3) How does V2X technology adoption rate impact system performance? Adoption rates of V2X technology play a significant role in the technology’s overall impact. While a V2X system promises to enable equipped vehicles to optimize their travel through a system of traffic lights, it is clear that vehicles in the system that do not have V2X technology could impede the optimal operations of V2X equipped vehicles. It is unclear at this point what the adoption rate of V2X technologies will need to be in order to observe a significant environmental impact of such systems. It is also unclear if there exists an interaction between the effectiveness of system level optimization versus an individual level optimization and V2X adoption rate. This study proposes to look at a small traffic light system with V2X Traffic Light to Vehicle Communication technology enabled. Using agent based simulation coupled with mixed integer programming techniques we will create research experiments to do the following: (1) Quantify the system level impact of a coordinated vehicle strategy versus an individual vehicle optimization strategy with respect to vehicle emissions and travel time. (2) Quantify the emissions and travel time impacts to individual drivers of participation in a coordinated traffic light optimization to minimize emissions. (2) Quantify the coordinated traffic system and individual traffic system performance under various levels of V2X technology adoption from 0 to 100 percent adoption rates.

Language

  • English

Project

  • Status: Completed
  • Funding: $28436
  • Contract Numbers:

    49198-16-28

  • Sponsor Organizations:

    Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

    University Transportation Centers Program
    Department of Transportation
    Washington, DC  United States  20590
  • Managing Organizations:

    University Transportation Research Center

    City College of New York
    Marshak Hall, Suite 910, 160 Convent Avenue
    New York, NY  United States  10031
  • Project Managers:

    Eickemeyer, Penny

  • Performing Organizations:

    Rochester Institute of Technology

    Brighton, NY   
  • Principal Investigators:

    McConky, Katie

  • Start Date: 20160822
  • Expected Completion Date: 20171231
  • Actual Completion Date: 0
  • USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01607480
  • Record Type: Research project
  • Source Agency: University Transportation Research Center
  • Contract Numbers: 49198-16-28
  • Files: UTC, RIP
  • Created Date: Aug 8 2016 9:44PM