A viscous continuum traffic flow model based on the cooperative car-following behaviour of connected and autonomous vehicles

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) can receive various information from surrounding vehicles through Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication technologies and adjust their car-following behaviour accordingly. Although several studies have evaluated the impact of CAVs on traffic flow stability in a small segment of networks, most approaches are focused on their specific applications considering the trajectory information, and there is a lack of studies analyzing the impact of CAVs on a large-scale network. This paper proposes a novel viscous continuum traffic model considering the anticipation of space headway, the throttle angle, and brake torque information during cooperative car-following. The methods employed to develop the new car-following model and its counterpart continuum traffic model have been described. The linear and non-linear stability analyses of the newly developed model have been conducted to obtain the critical stability factors in small perturbations. Numerical simulations have been carried out to investigate the effect of the anticipation, the throttle angle, and brake torque information on traffic stability, fuel consumption, and exhaust emissions. The numerical results reveal that the anticipation of space headway and the transmission of the throttle angle and brake torque information during cooperative car-following manoeuvres can improve the traffic flow stability and reduce fuel consumption and emissions.