A Cooperative Lane-Change Behaviour Evaluation for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles in Road Work Zones Environments

The mobility and safety benefits of Connected and Automated vehicles (CAVs) are an ongoing area of research. While several studies demonstrate the advantages of CAVs, there remains a gap in quantifying these benefits over conventional Automated Vehicles (AVs). Roadworks (RWs) are particularly challenging driving environment for AVs/CAVs. This paper evaluates the safety and mobility benefits of CAVs over AVs in RW conditions. The primary focus is on examining the lane change behaviour of AVs/CAVs at different design speeds, specifically 40km/h, 60km/h, and 80km/h. A simulated environment is developed to integrate CAVs and RW areas featuring lane closure. To achieve this, state-of-the-art models (lateral behaviour: Minimising Overall Braking Induced by Lane Changes (MOBIL); and longitudinal behaviour: Intelligent Driver Model (IDM)) were utilised, incorporating improvements to simulate near misses and crashes incidents. Furthermore, the study delves into the crucial aspect of safety by investigating the effects of model parameters on the chances of traffic crashes. The research findings demonstrate that CAVs start lane change manoeuvre early, particularly under high traffic flow conditions. Specifically, at a speed of 40 km/h and under high traffic conditions, CAVs demonstrated a success rate ranging from 91% to 96%, while AVs exhibited a substantially lower success rate, ranging only between 10% and 11%. The simulation results further highlight a lack of collisions in AVs/CAVs during lane change at RW. This research serves as a valuable contribution to the field of automated driving, providing insights into the optimisation of lane change behaviours and safety considerations at RW environments.