A simulation study of cooperative and autonomous vehicles (CAV) considering courtesy, ethics, and fairness.

Autonomous vehicles (AV) can be programmed to act cooperatively. Previous research on cooperative and autonomous vehicles (CAV) suggests they can substantially improve traffic system operations in terms of mobility and safety. However, these studies do not explicitly take each vehicle's potenti...

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Main Authors: Liming Jiang, Yuanchang Xie, Nicholas G Evans
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2023-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283649
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author Liming Jiang
Yuanchang Xie
Nicholas G Evans
author_facet Liming Jiang
Yuanchang Xie
Nicholas G Evans
author_sort Liming Jiang
collection DOAJ
description Autonomous vehicles (AV) can be programmed to act cooperatively. Previous research on cooperative and autonomous vehicles (CAV) suggests they can substantially improve traffic system operations in terms of mobility and safety. However, these studies do not explicitly take each vehicle's potential gain/loss into consideration and ignore their individual levels of willingness to cooperate. They do not account for ethics and fairness either. In this study, several cooperation/courtesy strategies are proposed to address the above issues. These strategies are grouped into two categories based on non-instrumental and instrumental principles. Non-instrumental strategies make courtesy/cooperation decisions based on some courtesy proxies and a user-specified courtesy level, while instrumental strategies are based only on courtesy proxies related to local traffic performance. Also, a new CAV behavior modeling framework is proposed based on our previous work on cooperative car-following and merging (CCM) control. With such a framework, the proposed courtesy strategies can be easily implemented. The proposed framework and courtesy strategies are coded in SUMO microscopic traffic simulator. They are evaluated considering different levels of traffic demand on a freeway corridor consisting of a work zone and three weaving areas of different types. Interesting findings are drawn from the simulation results, one of which is that the instrumental Local Utilitarianism strategy performs the best in terms of mobility, safety, and fairness. In the future, auction-based strategies can be considered to model how CAV make decisions.
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spelling doaj.art-c78c50b194e24376969e98d5a717dd542023-05-14T05:31:21ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032023-01-01185e028364910.1371/journal.pone.0283649A simulation study of cooperative and autonomous vehicles (CAV) considering courtesy, ethics, and fairness.Liming JiangYuanchang XieNicholas G EvansAutonomous vehicles (AV) can be programmed to act cooperatively. Previous research on cooperative and autonomous vehicles (CAV) suggests they can substantially improve traffic system operations in terms of mobility and safety. However, these studies do not explicitly take each vehicle's potential gain/loss into consideration and ignore their individual levels of willingness to cooperate. They do not account for ethics and fairness either. In this study, several cooperation/courtesy strategies are proposed to address the above issues. These strategies are grouped into two categories based on non-instrumental and instrumental principles. Non-instrumental strategies make courtesy/cooperation decisions based on some courtesy proxies and a user-specified courtesy level, while instrumental strategies are based only on courtesy proxies related to local traffic performance. Also, a new CAV behavior modeling framework is proposed based on our previous work on cooperative car-following and merging (CCM) control. With such a framework, the proposed courtesy strategies can be easily implemented. The proposed framework and courtesy strategies are coded in SUMO microscopic traffic simulator. They are evaluated considering different levels of traffic demand on a freeway corridor consisting of a work zone and three weaving areas of different types. Interesting findings are drawn from the simulation results, one of which is that the instrumental Local Utilitarianism strategy performs the best in terms of mobility, safety, and fairness. In the future, auction-based strategies can be considered to model how CAV make decisions.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283649
spellingShingle Liming Jiang
Yuanchang Xie
Nicholas G Evans
A simulation study of cooperative and autonomous vehicles (CAV) considering courtesy, ethics, and fairness.
PLoS ONE
title A simulation study of cooperative and autonomous vehicles (CAV) considering courtesy, ethics, and fairness.
title_full A simulation study of cooperative and autonomous vehicles (CAV) considering courtesy, ethics, and fairness.
title_fullStr A simulation study of cooperative and autonomous vehicles (CAV) considering courtesy, ethics, and fairness.
title_full_unstemmed A simulation study of cooperative and autonomous vehicles (CAV) considering courtesy, ethics, and fairness.
title_short A simulation study of cooperative and autonomous vehicles (CAV) considering courtesy, ethics, and fairness.
title_sort simulation study of cooperative and autonomous vehicles cav considering courtesy ethics and fairness
url https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283649
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