Dresden 2017 – scientific programme

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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

SOE 6: Poster

SOE 6.2: Poster

Monday, March 20, 2017, 17:00–20:00, P2-OG4

Phase Transitions in Autonomous Intersection Traffic? — •Dimitra Maoutsa, Debsankha Manik, Malte Schröder, and Marc Timme — Network Dynamics, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organisation

With the advent of self-driving (autonomous) vehicles, street traffic coordinated by traffic lights might soon not only be outdated, but also remarkably inefficient. Improved reactivity and precision of autonomous vehicles (compared to human drivers) opens up the possibility to more effectively coordinate conflicting traffic flows at intersections. Here we study the collective dynamics of intersection traffic managed by vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) communication [1] in combination with slot-based scheduling strategies that induce the formation of vehicle platoons [2]. We reveal under which conditions and how such a system undergoes a transition from free to congested flow and quantify the economic efficiency in dependence of control parameters. A shift from bounded to diverging traffic delays indicate the onset of efficiency losses. Such theoretical insights may help proposing optimized operating points for given traffic conditions and may therefore aid designing the prospective transit from conventionally to autonomously controlled traffic management.

References:

[1] Dresner & Stone, A multiagent approach to autonomous intersection management. J. Artif. Intell. Res. 31:591 (2008).

[2] Remi et al., Revisiting street intersections using slot-based systems, PLoS ONE, 11:e0149607 (2016).