Highway traffic state estimation with mixed connected and conventional vehicles: Microscopic simulation-based testing

This paper presents a thorough microscopic simulation investigation of a recently proposed methodology for highway traffic estimation in the presence of mixed traffic, i.e., traffic comprising both connected and conventional vehicles, which employs only average speed measurements stemming from connected vehicles and a limited number (sufficient to guarantee observability) of flow measurements from spot sensors. The estimation scheme is tested using the commercial traffic simulator Aimsun under various penetration rates of connected vehicles, employing a traffic scenario featuring congested as well as free-flow conditions. It is demonstrated that the estimation results are satisfactory, even for low penetration rates.