Influence of connected and autonomous vehicles on traffic flow stability and throughput

The introduction of connected and autonomous vehicles will bring changes to the highway driving environment. Connected vehicle technology provides real-time information about the surrounding traffic condition and the traffic management center’s decisions. Such information is expected to improve drivers’ efficiency, response, and comfort while enhancing safety and mobility. Connected vehicle technology can also further increase efficiency and reliability of autonomous vehicles, though these vehicles could be operated solely with their on-board sensors, without communication. While several studies have examined the possible effects of connected and autonomous vehicles on the driving environment, most of the modeling approaches in the literature do not distinguish between connectivity and automation, leaving many questions unanswered regarding the implications of different contemplated deployment scenarios. There is need for a comprehensive acceleration framework that distinguishes between these two technologies while modeling the new connected environment. This study presents a framework that utilizes different models with technology-appropriate assumptions to simulate different vehicle types with distinct communication capabilities. The stability analysis of the resulting traffic stream behavior using this framework is presented for different market penetration rates of connected and autonomous vehicles. The analysis reveals that connected and autonomous vehicles can improve string stability. Moreover, automation is found to be more effective in preventing shockwave formation and propagation under the model’s assumptions. In addition to stability, the effects of these technologies on throughput are explored, suggesting substantial potential throughput increases under certain penetration scenarios.     

The impact of car specifications,prices and incentives for battery electric vehicles in Norway: Choices of heterogeneous consumers

Electric vehicles (EVs), specifically Battery EVs (BEVs), can offer significant energy and emission savings over internal combustion engine vehicles. Norway has a long history of research and government incentives for BEVs. The BEV market in Norway allows us to fully examine consumers’ BEV choices influenced by car specifications, prices and government incentives (public bus lanes access, toll waiver and charging stations). The Random-Coefficient Discrete Choice Model (referred to as the BLP model) is applied to understand the choices of heterogeneous personal consumers and business buyers. Our study is instantiated on the entire EV sales data in Norway from 2011 to 2013, as well as a set of demographics at the municipality level. The results suggest significant positive effects of BEV technology improvement, space, toll waiver and charging station density on EV demand for both personal consumers and business buyers. However, the effects on business buyers may be generally less pronounced than on personal consumers. Interestingly, bus lanes access demonstrates a negative impact for personal consumers, possibly due to consumers’ concern regarding bus lane congestion. In addition, preferences on the BEV price can vary statistically among consumers with different income levels. Compared to the BEV technology development, demographical features and municipal incentives may have generally less impacts on market shares within the BEV market.     

双控道岔联系电路的设计与实现

在个别站场间,为节省占地面积或受其他因素制约,两站的联锁区是由一组双动道岔隔开。若其中一站为计算机联锁控制,另一站为6502电气集中控制,依据相关设计规范,设计出一套计算机联锁车站与6502电气集中车站利用渡线隔开时的结合电路。该结合电路安全可靠,未改变原有电路定型结构。经过联锁模拟实验,该设计方案合理可行。     

Expanding scope of hybrid choice models allowing for mixture of social influences and latent attitudes: Application to intended purchase of electric cars

Recently, policy makers’ expectations about the role of electric cars in reducing emissions have risen substantially. In parallel, academic research on purchase intentions has dramatically increased. Originally, most studies have focused on utility attributes and price. More recently, several hybrid choice models have been estimated to include the impact of attitudes on choice probabilities. In addition, a few studies have caught the attention to social influence. In contributing to this line of research, this paper reports the results of an expanded hybrid choice, which simultaneously estimated all these different effects in a single integrated model of purchase intention. Results indicate that the model performs well. Costs considerations contribute most to the utility of electric cars. Social influence is less important, but there is also evidence that people tend to take it into consideration when there are positive public opinions about electric cars and the market share becomes almost half of friends of their social network. The intention to purchase an electric car is also influenced by attitudes about environmental concerns and technology acceptance.     

Network equilibrium models with battery electric vehicles

The limited driving ranges, the scarcity of recharging stations and potentially long battery recharging or swapping time inevitably affect route choices of drivers of battery electric vehicles (BEVs). When traveling between their origins and destinations, this paper assumes that BEV drivers select routes and decide battery recharging plans to minimize their trip times or costs while making sure to complete their trips without running out of charge. With different considerations of flow dependency of energy consumption of BEVs and recharging time, three mathematical models are formulated to describe the resulting network equilibrium flow distributions on regional or metropolitan road networks. Solution algorithms are proposed to solve these models efficiently. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the models and solution algorithms.     

Smarter and more connected: Future intelligent transportation system

Emerging technologies toward a connected vehicle-infrastructure-pedestrian environment and big data have made it easier and cheaper to collect, store, analyze, use, and disseminate multi-source data. The connected environment also introduces new approaches to flexible control and management of transportation systems in real time to improve overall system performance. Given the benefits of a connected environment, it is crucial that we understand how the current intelligent transportation system could be adapted to the connected environment.     

提高通信设备供电系统质量的措施

介绍了提高铁路通信设备系统质量的措施及其效果。     

电动汽车动力电池热失控过程分析及预警机制设计

文章通过实验数据对热失控发生的过程进行分析,提取出关键的信号特征。设计出一套全面完整的热失控预警系统,并总结出多个报警条件,避免出现故障的误报及漏报的情况。最后介绍了热失控预警后整车及大数据的应对措施。     

“1+X”证书制度下的汽车检测与维修专业“三教”存在问题研究

在教学过程中,"师资,教材,教法"是基本内容,教学质量指标也受到影响。本文以新能汽车检验维修专业为例,对职教二十条进行了分析。职业教育"三教一体化"改革的重要性,同时,针对教师,教材和教学方法等问题提出了切实可行的改革思路,仅供相关人员参考。     

Connected cruise control: modelling,delay effects,and nonlinear behaviour

Connected vehicle systems (CVS) are considered in this paper where vehicles exchange information using wireless vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication. The concept of connected cruise control (CCC) is established that allows control design at the level of individual vehicles while exploiting V2V connectivity. Due to its high level of modularity the proposed design can be applied to large heterogeneous traffic systems. The dynamics of a simple CVS is analysed in detail while taking into account nonlinearities in the vehicle dynamics as well as in the controller. Time delays that arise due to intermittencies and packet drops in the communication channels are also incorporated. The results are summarised using stability charts which allow one to select control gains to maintain stability and ensure disturbance attenuation when the delay is below a critical value.