Autonomous Vehicles as Local Traffic Optimizers

This paper explores the interaction between autonomous and human-driven cars on a microscopic level using an agent-based traffic simulator. More specifically, it deals with the design of driving logic models of "socially-aware" autonomous vehicles that can improve the performance of surrounding vehicles on the road. Congestion waves, which are created as a result of an abrupt stopping or a car joining a highway, are a known phenomenon in current traffic systems. Experiments performed, demonstrate how the presence of intelligent social vehicles on the road can reduce such effects by acting as a flexible medium between human-driven cars. Metrics to evaluate benefits ot our AV behaviour models under various states of traffic conditions/congestion are also proposed. Finally, results showing the effectiveness of these models are presented.