Simulation and Analysis of Mixed Adaptive Cruise Control / Manual Traffic

Semi-automated vehicles, such as Adaptive (Intelligent) Cruise Control (ACC) Vehicles, with the capability to follow each other in the same lane, will coexist with manually driven vehicles on the existing roadway system before they become universal. This mixed fleet scenario creates new capacity and safety issues. In this paper, simulation results of various mixed fleet scenarios are presented. The analysis of the effect of mixing on capacity and stability of traffic system is based on these results. It’s found that throughput increases with the proportion of ACC vehicles when flow is below capacity conditions. But above capacity, speed variability increases and speed drops with Constant Time Gap (CTG) control ACC compared with human drivers.