Efficiency
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Further discussion
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Why emphasize CAV-System Efficiency? Congestion, characterized by stop and restart traffic, makes freeways inefficient at peak travel times and locations. During such congestion, traveler time and fuel may be wasted, and air quality degraded. Conversely, an efficient CAV System would be characterized by continuous traffic flow.
Measures of Efficiency One rough measure of CAV-System efficiency might be cost / passenger mile. Such a measure would assume that passengers bear the full cost of their travel and would account for vehicle occupancy, CAVWAY fees, and CAV or TaaS costs. A second such measure might be cost / pound-mile for freight. These measures do not account for queuing delays which need to be separately priced. Achieving CAV-System Efficiency Davius has his own ideas about efficiency; see his seventh commandment at right. Common protocols will allow CAVs to form platoons. Platooning refers here to CAVs traveling in a lane at a common, constant speed and holding their spacing. There might be more than one space (or box) between any two CAVs to enable lane changes. Platooning will not be sufficient to maintain continuous traffic flow. CAVWAYs will monitor traffic volume and limit access to prevent traffic loads from exceeding roadway capacity. Depending on demand, access control could result in queuing and delay at some entry nodes. Potential remedies for such high demand might be congestion pricing [Hu, W. 2019], ride sharing, or depending on the demand mix, adding a lane. Building congestion-pricing into access protocols would give CAV Systems a mechanism to level CAV access demand over time and CAVWAY space. |
