Modeling Autonomous Vehicles Deployment in a Multilane AV Zone With Mixed Traffic

The advancement of technologies has fast-tracked the deployment of autonomous vehicles (AVs), however, they necessitate the modernization of the existing road infrastructure to meet the technical and safety requirements of AVs. Due to the high cost and prolonged time required for upgrading infrastructure, it is expected that AVs will be introduced gradually into the existing transport network of human-driven vehicles (HVs) either jointly or separately in a special area or zone within that network. In this paper, we propose a mathematical framework for modelling and deployment of multi-lane AV zone in a mixed-user traffic network that takes into account the different route choice decisions of HVs and AVs. The model is used to study two different designs for a multi-lane AV zone, where in Design 1, both lanes are dedicated for AVs inside the AV zone; while in Design 2, one lane is dedicated for AVs, and another lane is for the HV traffic. We then derive an equivalent convex formulation and develop a novel solution method for this complex problem, as well as evaluate and compare the performance of the designs in a realistic large-scale transportation network. Numerical results show that the deployment of a multi-lane AV zone improves network performance in terms of the total system travel time (TSTT). The proposed framework can be used to assist transportation planners and decision-makers to successfully deploy AVs seamlessly with mixed traffic.