The impact of autonomous vehicle technology on congestion has been a topic of discussion for some time now.  The general consensus has been that a relatively small number of vehicles is required to make a significant difference on congestion.  It’s a conclusion shared by a new study from Bar-Ilan University, which highlights the impact a small number of autonomous vehicles can have.

The researchers present a set of guidelines and regulations to essentially self-organizae autonomous vehicles into their own constellations. These constellations then control the entire flow of traffic in real-time.  The researchers suggest that these guidelines are sufficient that traffic flow would be enhanced if just 5% of the vehicles on the road were autonomous.

The authors describe how autonomous vehicles achieve this self-organized state on the road, such that the traffic flow is split into more controllable clusters.  This state can be achieved in about two minutes, which the team suggest will result in high-speed, greener and safer traffic flow.

“Without regulations on AVs, we face a classic example of game theory paradox, such as the prisoner’s dilemma, where each vehicle tries to optimize its driving speed but the overall traffic flow is not optimal. In our research we examine how, with proper regulations, a very small number of AVs can improve the overall traffic flow significantly, through cooperation,” they explain.

The researchers believe that their approach could yield an increase in traffic flow speed of up to 40%, with a corresponding fall in fuel consumption of around 28%.  What’s more, they also believe that traffic safety will be improved as the roads become more ordered with fewer lane transitions.  The improvements, they believe, can be achieved without requiring a central agent to coordinate the activities of the autonomous vehicles, and even without any vehicle-to-vehicle communication.  As such, they believe it’s a scalable system that can make a real impact right away.