Emergency vehicle maneuvers and control laws for automated highway systems

The operation and transit of emergency vehicles on an automated highway system (AHS) designed under the control architecture proposed in the California Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways (PATH) program is described. The term emergency vehicles is used in a general sense to describe vehicles, such as police cars, ambulances, and tow trucks, that may service faults inside or outside the AHS. The transit of emergency vehicles requires intensive participation of the coordination layer, which directs the interactions of neighboring vehicles, and the link layer, which regulates traffic flow along stretches of highway. Various strategies for these two hierarchical layers that are needed to assign high-priority transit to emergency vehicles (EVs) on the AHS are described. These coordination and link layer maneuvers circulate vehicles around the EV in both free-flowing and stopped traffic.