As the introduction of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) promises to reduce road space demand and improve traffic flows and safety, adapted transportation and infrastructure planning becomes imperative for urban development. Surprisingly, some major European cities still do not include CAVs in their strategic urban mobility plans which demonstrates the need to increase the awareness of the stakeholders. That is the void the European project CoEXistaims to fill by allowing mobility stakeholders to become "automation-ready".
To this end, the availability of adapted simulation software is needed, and new features have been introduced within the project to enable the simulation and modelling of CAVs. The control logics of a CAV has been connected to a vehicle simulator to analyse the behaviour of CAVs. On the basis of these analyses the microscopic simulation software, PTV Vissim has been enhanced. Empirical data collected from real automated cars on a test track were used to calibrate the behaviour of the CAVs within the model and to suggest default behavioural parameter sets for modelling CAVs.
The results of the validated CAV-ready microsimulation model were used to make supply-side assumptions for macroscopic models. And macroscopic modelling tools were also developed to support strategic CAV planning with both scripts as well as improvements of the PTV Visum software.
Besides CoEXist includes a proof of concept. To that end, eight use cases across Europe were investigated. The improved software and assessment tools were applied to these use cases which attempt to cover the wide range of influencing parameters such as road type, traffic load, CAV penetration rates, etc.
