Effects of automated driving functions on the track availability of the Austrian motorway network

Road operators and traffic engineers always want to ensure a safe and uninterrupted traffic flow. It is expected that automation and digitization of road traffic will have a positive impact on traffic safety, traffic flow and traffic availability. To know more about the effects of automated driving on motorways, a research project was started by the Austrian motorway operator ASFINAG. In general, today’s traffic flow models are not designed for the simulation of automated driving behavior. Due to these missing driving functionalities, common traffic simulation tools cannot be used for evaluating the impact of automated driving on traffic flow and traffic performance. In this project, automated driving functionalities were developed for different levels of automation and implemented subsequently in microscopic traffic flow models. Different scenarios in terms of varying penetration rates of these levels of automation were simulated on typical motorway segments. The road capacity was estimated for all these scenarios and incorporated into the macroscopic transport model of the entire Austrian motorway network.