Transportation systems with autonomous vehicles: Modeling issues and research perspectives

We are on the verge of a new revolution for road transportation: automated, automatic, and/or connected vehicles will soon be seen moving people and freight in urban areas and on motorways as well, likely supporting the spread of both shared and electric vehicles among travelers. But to turn all the existing stock of traditional human-driven vehicles, most often privately owned, will presumably take several years. Meanwhile both technologies will co-exist and share the same facilities. The evaluation of the impacts on network performance and user behavior requires enhancements of the tools of the traffic and transportation theory already available to modelers and planners. This paper proposes a general overview of existing methods for traffic analysis and control and for transportation systems analysis and design to test whether they can still be applied as such, or with straightforward enhancements, or new tools are needed.