AbstractsEngineering

Introduction of Autonomous Vehicles in the Swedish Traffic System

by Felicia Bohm




Institution: Uppsala University
Department:
Year: 2015
Keywords: Engineering and Technology; Teknik och teknologier; Systems in Technology and Society Programme; Civilingenjörsprogrammet System i teknik och samhälle
Record ID: 1370414
Full text PDF: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-253996


Abstract

Vehicles that are able to drive partly or fully without human interaction are called autonomous. Several companies work towards an implementation on the commercial market. This project studies autonomous vehicles through simulations of road capacity, emissions and fuel consumption together with discussions about the implementation in the Swedish context. Barriers seen as the most critical are technology, user acceptance and social factors and laws and regulations. Simulations of today’s conventional vehicle fleet are performed and compared to corresponding simulations with autonomous features included. A part of the Uppsala traffic network is simulated and key indicators average delay , average number of stops and average speed are studied. Simulation results for a high vehicle flow, corresponding to a maximum hour in the chosen network, show that the implementation will improve the road capacity parameters. Delay and number of stops decrease with 56 respectively 54 percent and speed increases with 34 percent, which are all desirable changes. Corresponding results for a low vehicle flow is a deterioration of delay and speed with 1.3 and 0.38 percent and an improvement of number of stops corresponding to 2.9 percent. Results for the low vehicle flow are not as distinct as for high flow and this pattern repeats in results from calculations for emission and fuel consumption. A workshop is held to discuss autonomous vehicle’s impact on the Swedish urban development. The participants of the workshop contributed with discussions about behavioral changes, conflicts of interest and laws and regulations in terms of autonomous vehicles.