The Effects of Cruise Controlled Vehicles on Traffic Density

In this paper we study the performance of a class of cruise controllers for automated vehicles on a macroscopic scale. To approximate the solutions of the corresponding macroscopic traffic model, a particle method is used, in which the vehicles are considered as “self-driven” particles of a fluid, to provide a link between the macroscopic model and the underlying microscopic cruise controllers. This allows to determine the physical properties of the “traffic-fluid” by changing the functions or the parameter values included in the cruise controllers. Finally, a traffic simulation scenario and a comparison with the Aw-Rascle-Zhang (ARZ) model are provided, illustrating the advantages of the use of automated vehicles.