Journal of Korean Society of Transportation ISSN:1229-1366(Print) 2234-4217(Online) 대한교통학회지

Securing the benefits of deploying autonomous vehicles in terms of traffic operation is the top priority when autonomous vehicles and general vehicles are mixed on the roads in the future. Recently, some studies have been conducted on the impact on traffic flow of a road section when autonomous vehicles are deployed. However, there is a lack of studies analyzing the impact of performance changes of vehicle sensors and V2X communication due to adverse weather or infrastructure conditions. Hence, assuming adverse driving conditions, this study analyzes the impact on traffic flow of an urban road section according to the changes in the sensing range and communication delay time of autonomous vehicles. To this end, this study establishes an experimental environment for traffic flow safety analysis based on the VISSIM simulation program. Then, various variables of sensing range and communication delay that can be changed by adverse conditions are applied to simulation experiments. Evaluation indices related to traffic flow safety are provided, and the indices are calculated based on the data extracted from the simulation experiments. Using the indices, a comparative analysis is performed among the results of various scenarios. Such an analysis is expected to provide basic information on the minimum requirements for sensing range and communication delay to assure traffic flow safety in various adverse conditions.