The new highway, expected to be one of many, will run between Beijing and the Xiongan New Area in the Hebei province, FutureCar reports. There, a new 62-mile stretch of freeway will have two lanes dedicated to autonomous vehicles (AVs). The idea is that the infrastructure investment will give AVs access to real-world traffic conditions — but also that the separate lanes will ensure that the still-limited AV tech is tested in a way that minimizes risk for human drivers.
Will these dedicated lanes do good or harm to the safety or mobility efficiency of the freeway?
As automated/AI vehicles are still in their nascent stages, I think that the dedicated lanes is an excellent investment. By allowing these vehicles access to real world conditions, a great deal of data and feedback will be collected and could be used to improve this technology. These data can then be used to tweak the AI algorithms such that in the future, AV's will not be regarded as dangerous.
But during the early deployment phase, the penetration rate of AV may be very low, this will affect the mobility efficiency of the whole way and prolong the cycle of investment recovery.
I think it is a good idea to have some separation between AV and vehicles with less automation but the loss in traffic efficiency or the cost of extra lines is to high to justify the benefit AV development and market penetration could gain.
It depends on the automatization level. For tested vehicles (Level 3 or lower), it is good in the sense they don't represent a big risk... Otherwise, it is necessary to wait to improve the technology for mixed traffic with humans drivers.
This may really not be necessary in the long run. However, I think the road infrastructure should be up graded especially in developing countries where the concept has not been generally accepted. For the developed world, I think that the idea is adequate; first for economical comparison and secondly for paradigm shift.
Peter Siyan I can not fully understand your reply.Do you think there is no necessary for developing countries or for both in long term?
I think it is better to have a comparison study (economical and functional) between the road with and without the AV lanes. However, if you need a quick feeling, it is better to have dedicated lanes for AV for safety purpose and encouraging the idea of AV usage.
The answer to your question can be Yes. It is a good idea to build the new two lanes 62 miles automated vehicles transport system that will run between Beijing and Xiongan. I think that the dedicated lanes built for only the autonomous vehicles is a shift to automated transport system. Also, in developed countries, it must be noted that, before we shift to automated transportation system, the human driven vehicles and the automated vehicles are highly likely to share the roads for decades, if the roads are been upgraded to allow vehicles to adapt to changes.
Seems like a good idea. If the operation of the AVs is hugely successful, they could be integrated with the general vehicles. If it's not successful at all, the lanes could be converted to general vehicle lanes at little cost. In the process we will all increase our knowledge of the risk associated with the operation of AVs.
As we know that there are multiple factors affecting during the phases of implementation of autonomous vehicles on road. For example, it is quite feasible economically and probably marketing point of view for some nations to build such kinds of separate expressways, but not feasible especially economically for the developing nations. Although, as a pilot project one can do it as per their demographic and geographic requirements/conditions.
I believe the main question we would need to answer before thinking for an answer to your question Zhigang Xu is what level of automation is envisioned on these roads? I assume when you mentioned autonomous vehciles you did not mean only driverless cars.
Saleh Mousa We consider this dedicated road is only for the AV above L3.Connected vehicles driven by human are not considered.
As far as AVs are not able to perform safely and deal with complex traffic situations they shouldn't be allowed to the public roads without safety drivers. That's why all AV companies are moving towards developing their own safety case. If they cannot prove that their AVs are X time better than human-driven vehicles, then they will loose the market.
Zhigang Xu that said, I would say there are two aspects to consider when answering this question. What is the major objective? Is it increasing mobility or ensuring the safe operation of the technology as the technology matures and public trust builds? Several aspects need to be considered when answering these questions. First, you need to identify the different AV features expected to operate on this road and their anticipated volume. Then based on the objective identified earlier, and the technical specifications for these AV you can select the viability of such lane and or the features to operate. The optimal solution may be segregating only the L3 vehicles into these lanes if the L4 vehicles demonstrated adequate performance on these highways. Pilots, technological specifications, and human factors might reveal that only L3 vehicles (specific feature) impose a crash risk to the stream due to associated human factors. The situation might be totally different if long platoons are expected to operate. Then depending on the length of the platoons and the vehicles capable of joining platoons you would select what would be the optimal plan. The bottom line, I believe there is no one answer to this question. You need to think about this problem as a set of possible scenarios based on the technology status and market penetration of AV features. Then try to enforce the scenario that serves your objectives, the most
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Well, a very interesting experiment. Let´s observe what will occure, maybe it will be necessary to separate these lanes and the exits from the otherwise traffic. If there will be a need it´s too early to answer yet.
That's a good idea. But there are some questions. Due to the difference between AV and HV, when constructing dedicated lanes for autonomous vehicles, you need to pay attention to the horizontal alignment, longitudinal alignment, cross-section, lane width, access and so on, and this factors are suitable for AV.
Yes AV vehicles should get their on lane as we are in the initial stages and we need to monitor AV for future planning if we are to combine with other types of vehicles. This dedicated lanes or expressways need not be expensive as we are still in the trial stages.
This is really interesting but I’m curious as to what will be learnt from the AV having it’s own lane on an expressway. If it’s autonomous, it should be able to drive in any condition, and if it’s about helping the vehicle to understand and navigate it’s surroundings, surely a dedicated testing centre would expose the technology to the various scenarios cars will experience in normal driving activities. However, thanks for asking the question and raising an interesting aspect to the AV development.
Very best wishes, James.
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