Increasing Road Traffic Throughput Through Dynamic Traffic Accident Risk Mitigation

The introduction of Vehicular ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) leads to the
possibility to re-evaluate many traditional functions and views of road
traffic networks. The ability for vehicles and infrastructure to commu-
nicate and collaborate will enable many novel solutions for problems as
diverse as collision avoidance and traffic management with the view of re-
ducing traffic congestion, increasing the effectiveness of logistics systems
etc.
In this paper we introduce a novel framework that utilises VANET in-
formation to share information about risk factors among road occupants
and infrastructure. We introduce the concept of risk limits as a means of
traffic accident risk mitigation, whereby vehicles need to adjust their be-
haviour to maintain a given level of risk. We discuss determination of risk
values and detail this process using the NSW traffic accident database.
We show how the effects on risk of particular vehicular behaviours such
as speed and headway can be calculated and use these results to modify
vehicle behaviour in real time to maintain a predefined risk limit. Exper-
iments are carried out using the Paramics microsimulator. Our results
show that it is possible to reduce the accident rate among vehicles while
at the same time increasing road network throughput by exploiting the
variation in risk between vehicles.