Safety Considerations for a High Density Automated Vehicle System

Simulation on the digital computer was used to evaluate systems safety for high-density traffic of automatically controlled vehicles. The response of vehicle-borne and wayside emergency control systems to sudden failure of a moving vehicle and failure to detect a stalled vehicle ahead was investigated. The number and severity of the resulting collisions were used as measures of the system’s ability to cope with accidents. The capacity and safety performance of the wayside control system was found to be distinctly superior to that of the vehicle-borne system. For a desired lane capacity, the most reasonable operating speed depends primarily on vehicle length. Finally, the results indicate that significant (systems') safety benefits are obtained if vehicles are able to maintain their speedy movement for a short time after a collision.