A Cellular Automata Model for Heterogeneous Traffic Flow Incorporating Micro Autonomous Vehicles

Despite the fact that significant research efforts have been made to the traffic flow theory of autonomous vehicles and manual vehicles, few existing studies have incorporated different modes of both vehicles in their analysis. In this study, we develop a cellular automata simulation model to investigate the impact of different modes of autonomous vehicles (autonomous car, autonomous bus, and autonomous micro car) and conventional vehicles (manual car, manual bus, and manual micro car) on the characteristics of traffic flow. A new type of autonomous mode, i.e., autonomous micro car, is investigated in the model to study the effects of this vehicle mode on the overall capacity of the network. Furthermore, two types of lane-changing behavior, i.e., aggressive lane changing and polite lane changing, are incorporated into the model. The results reveal that micro cars (manual and autonomous) have the potential to reduce traffic congestions and increase the capacity or flow rate (vehicles/hour) of the road. Where the average vehicle occupancy is less than 2, if autonomous micro cars are deployed alongside autonomous cars, the flow rate (vehicles/hour) can be increased significantly. The results highlight the significance of the autonomous micro cars to traffic flow, passenger occupancy, and road capacity.