Mixture of automatically- and manually-controlled vehicles in intelligent transport systems

This paper presents a technology which allows for the existence of mixed traffic, as a first step towards intelligent transport systems. We begin by designing an automatic driving controller called the intelligent vehicle driving system (IVDS). This is a two-layer system: the higher layer analyzes the current scenario and infers the control objective that associates with a certain index function; the lower layer optimizes the function provided by the upper layer. IVDS only uses the measurement of a vehicle's speed and distance relative to the vehicle in front, together with measurements of the vehicle's own state. Consequently, the vehicles equipped with the IVDS can operate together with manually-controlled vehicles. Next, a mathematical rule-based model for human drivers is developed. This model attempts to mimic human driver's behavior in vehicle following and lane-changing. Finally, we examine the control performance of the proposed controller and the potential benefits of mixed traffic by implementing the human driver model and IVDS on an automated highway simulator.