Assessing the Long- and Mid-Term Effects of Connected and Automated Vehicles on Highways’ Traffic Flow and Capacity

In recent years, connected automated vehicles (CAV) have received significant attention and have the potential to revolutionize our existing transportation system. Highway infrastructure construction management has to deal with a variety of uncertainties related to traffic volume and capacity due to the impact of AVs in the future. Such ambiguity makes the entire infrastructure planning highly volatile. While it is perceived that some legal and technical issues yet to be solved, widespread adoption of automated vehicles is considered unavoidable. To the best of authors’ knowledge, currently, there is not a comprehensive survey regarding the impacts of AV adoption on the traffic in the context of the highway construction. This paper fills this gap and presents a comprehensive review of the literature, investigating the impact of AV adoption on the highway infrastructure to explore the trends and new directions. The authors explore how automated vehicles adoption could alter the attractiveness of traveling by car and the way it affects the mode of transportation choice. Moreover, the impact of AV adoption on the highway capacity is investigated. The future directions of the research along with potential drawbacks associated with AV adoption impact on highways are also discussed.