Preliminary estimate of highway capacity benefit attainable with IntelliDrive technologies

Recent development in IntelliDrive and associated Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANET) has stimulated tremendous interests among decision-makers, practitioners, and researchers due to the potential safety and mobility benefits provided by these technologies. A primary concern regarding the deployment of IntelliDrive is degree of market penetration required for effectiveness. This paper proposes an approach to analyze the benefit of highway capacity gained from IntelliDrive. To fulfill this purpose, a model incorporating the effects of IntelliDrive on car following is formulated, based on which a rough estimate of the resulting capacity gain is derived. A simulation study is conducted to verify the model and an illustrative example is provided to show the order of magnitude of the capacity gain. This work provides decision-makers and practitioners a basic understanding of the mobility benefit obtained from IntelliDrive and how such benefit varies as market penetration changes.