PRE2016 3 Groep11

Introduction

With the expectations of the current car development as well as the current state of the art, it’s highly likely that autonomous cars will cooperate in traffic. The development steps, innovativity and the inventivity of big companies which support the production of autonomous cars, such as Tesla, BMW and Google, are - with an increasing rate of confidence - stating that it will be a matter of years before the first great share of autonomous vehicles on roads will be noticeable.

This will logically result in a mixture of both non-autonomous as well as self-driving vehicles. Autonomous vehicles have abilities with respect to reaction time and affiliation that are way advanced in comparison to human drivers. This will most likely be a cause of some interference between both of the vehicles with respect to the current traffic system. The differences that both vehicles have in reaction -and processing time can be unbeneficial for places where there is an almost continuous amount of much traffic.

This will especially occur in the rings of big cities, where the amount of traffic is big and chaotic most of the time. It is at this place in a city, where almost all other roads of the city can be reached. So these rings will be packed with traffic that has destinations in the city center, but also traffic from the city center that wants to reach out of the city bounds.

This report will be focusing on the development of a new system for traffic lights, so autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles will show more cooperation as well as an improved fluency. This project will look into the effects of a new traffic system that can be utilized on rings in the center of big cities. The density of traffic, the average speed, the passing time and CO2-emission are results that are aimed to look after in this report.

Authors

• 0960493 Tim Houthuijs
• 0934016 Kevin Jenniskens
• 0958509 Matthijs van Raaij
• 0948190 Sarah Rohder
• 0903327 Floris Tulner
• 0945501 Lars Verstraelen

2 Focus, Objectives and Approach

2.1 Focus

Requirements

• 2 lane road, with near traffic lights left and right turn lanes
• all ((autonomous?)no annoyed/annoying drivers?) vehicles will stay below speed limitations
• sensors in road between traffic lights to sense cars
• traffic intensity for enter / exit roads can be adjusted
• communication between autonomous cars as well as traffic lights can contain:
  • traffic systems can send recommended speed to autonomous cars
  • speed and location of the cars can be send
  • acknowledgement data received
  • perhaps sensor data of the length of a platoon can be send
• traffic lights have a max time to be on green so a platoon has also a max length

Constraints

• emergency vehicles will not be simulated
• platoon = 7+ cars (may be subject to change)

Assumptions

• communication between traffic lights and autonomous vehicles have unlimited range
• all cars have same fuel usage/efficiency if co2 is considered
• all cars follow shortest distance to destination
• pedestrians and bicyclists follow the rules and only pass when they are allowed to
• human driven cars don't pass a red light

2.2 Objectives

• Find current algorithm that can make platooning in these circumstances
• Create a new algorithm for platooning in a ringlike traffic situation
• Adjusting the algorithm to make it optimize its use of green waves
• Try to realistically base it on “de ring van eindhoven”

3 USE aspects

The situation that is developed in this Wiki is reminiscent of a situation that can be found in real life. Obviously, it is a simplified model of such a real life situation, but suitable for this project. However, even if the model is simplified, the different aspects of the real life equivalent should not be ignored. For instance, the role of the pedestrians that can be found trying to cross the ring are practically reduced to the assumption that that only happens when the light is red for the automobiles. However, to just ignore a such significant user of the traffic system in the Netherlands is quite brash. Thus, in this section the different USE aspects that are important to the specific simplified model of this project will be discussed, but also those in a similar real life situation, where the stakeholders should be the same.

Users

The users of the traffic system in the Netherlands consist of everyone participating in traffic. This ranges from users on wheels, such as automobiles and lorries, to pedestrians and cyclists. Even within these user groups there are different preferences and wishes to how the traffic system should look like. For instance, automobilists want to drive as fast as possible, while never having to stop for something else. Pedestrians want to safely walk alongside the faster traffic, such on curbs, and be able to cross the road where they need to. Obviously, this contradicts each other in a way. So, an overview of these different groups need to be made, such as can seen in (BELOW).

Automobilists (cars, lorries)

• Want to drive as fast as possible
• Nothing that slows down or stops their journey (such as traffic lights)
• If there is a waiting time, let it be as short as possible
• Good quality roads
• Everybody keeps to the traffic rules

Pedestrians

• Safe place to walk
• Safe place to cross the road
• If there is a waiting time, let it be as short as possible
• Everybody keeps to the traffic rules

Cyclists

• Safe place to cycle
• Wants to cycle as fast as it can
• Nothing to slow down or stop their journey
• If there is a waiting time, let it be as short as possible
• Good quality roads
• Everybody keeps to the traffic rules

Special types of vehicles (ambulances, fire trucks)

• Being able to pass regular traffic in an emergency in a safe way
• Travelling time as short as possible
• Always green lights for any traffic light

Unfortunately, not all of these wishes can be granted, nor can all wishes be considered in this projects simplified model. For instance, a constraint of the model is that special vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclist will not be modeled into the system. Pedestrians and cyclist will be present, they will just not be separately simulated, as the assumption is that when the light is red for the ring users, then those two groups can safely cross the ring. Furthermore, since the simulation is based around optimising a traffic light-based system, it is difficult to grant the wish to all users that they never have to stop during their journey. However, the goal of this project is to try to optimise the waiting time, making it as short as possible for all present users. Additionally, this should also create a safer traffic environment for all involved, granting at least a few of the wishes of every user.

Society

The next important stakeholder in the ring-based traffic system is Society itself. Society also consists of the previous mentioned users, but also users that do not participate (at the moment) in the traffic system, thus keeping their wishes in mind as well. Furthermore, Society also has different interests and smaller stakeholders within, such as the environment, the economy, and ranking compared to other Societies (such as in a different country). An overview of the wishes in the Society needs be made, but it also needs to be clear what kind of different groups are represented in this projects Society,

Environment

• The CO2 emission should be lowered
• There should be less pollution
• No destroying the environment
• Society needs to be green, and look/see green (think planting trees and such)

Economy

• The quality of the traffic system should be at a minimum level, preferably higher
• Any change to the traffic system should be as cheap as possible
• Everybody needs to be able to reach their destination as fast as possible, since any delay costs *money

Compared to other Societies

• This Society needs to be the greenest
• It needs to have the safest roads
• It needs to have the highest quality of roads

Other User groups

• The roads need to be as safe as possible
• The roads need to be clean (think, no garbage from cars and such)
• The traffic should preferably be as far away from Society as possible

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Assumptions

In order to solve our main problem we need to make some assumptions. these assumptions help us to better address our problem statement. It also helps to break down the problem in its core problems and solutions. By simplifying the problem you make your problem more understandable. So our assumptions we made are the following.

We assume that the current traffic system is suboptimal in terms of:

- Waiting in line for the traffic lights. As well as in terms of safety.

- The current traffic system is also suboptimal in in terms of CO2 emission.

- We also assume that self driving car will be fully autonomous in 20 years from now.

- Robots make less errors than persons.

USE aspect

In order to make a research that sheds light onto every part, we do not only look at the technological side, but also at the USE-side. This means that we will look at the user, society and enterprise aspects that are within a civilisation such as the Netherlands. Each side has its own actors, which bring their own opinions on the matter. These can be in favour, against or indifferent, depending on what side they represent.

User

In the user side of the spectrum, we have the following actors:

- drivers of non-autonomous cars;

- the people inside of autonomous cars;

- and the pedestrians and cyclists.

These actors also have different values, which have to be taken into account. These include safety for the people inside of the autonomous cars as well as for the pedestrians and cyclists. Autonomous cars are safer in general, but with the reduction of the amount of traffic lights, it might be more dangerous for the non-autonomous part of traffic. Another value is the effectivity of traffic, which looks at how much traffic is being regulated, such as traffic lights, which influences how fast people get to their destination.

Society

For the societal aspect, we have the actors being the ANWB and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment.

They look at the pros and cons of the situation. The pros include the increase in safety amoung drivers, as this will rise due to the decrease in accidents. This means that the contribution of insurances will drop, which is beneficial. Another pro is that there will be more jobs for maintenance in traffic, due to the preparation needed for autonomous cars in traffic.

On the other side, there is the reduction of jobs for truck drivers, which lies around 200.000. The difference between rich and poor will also become larger, as the poorer people will not be able to afford autonomous cars.

Enterprise

At the enterprise side, we have got the actors of the producers of the autonomous cars (think of for example Tesla or Google), and software companies that develop traffic systems (examples to be looked up).

These actors also provide certain pros and cons. These include more jobs in the autonomous car industry, large sales for autonomous car producers and lots of jobs in the informational sector. This last one may have an issue as there might not be enough people in this sector.