Traffic Flow Impacts of Converting an HOV Lane Into a Dedicated CACC Lane on a Freeway Corridor

Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) systems can increase roadway capacity, but the benefits are marginal at low market penetration rates (MPRs). Thus, a CACC dedicated lane is considered to group CACC vehicles for efficient traffic stream. Concepts of converting existing High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes into CACC lanes emerge, which leverages the infrastructural facilities and experience with HOV lanes. However, it is unclear to which extent changing HOV lanes to CACC lanes can influence freeway operations. This study examines the traffic flow impacts of converting HOV lanes into CACC lanes regarding CACC MPRs on a complex freeway corridor with multiple interacting bottlenecks in California. A simulation model capable of reproducing flow characteristics with HOV lane and CACC systems is employed for the assessment. Special attention is paid to macroscopic congestion patterns, CACC lane utilization, travel time reliability and CACC operation characteristics. The results show that converting to CACC lanes at low MPRs (130%) can exacerbate congestion in general purpose lanes, whereas at mediate CACC MPRs (40%-50%) the congestion is drastically alleviated due to a large share of traffic carried by CACC lanes.