Traffic safety through Cooperative Automated Vehicle 'herd immunity'

Abstract

The research of connected automated vehicles (CAVs) is an emerging topic within the field of transport & planning. It is not a question of whether the vehicles will be available for commercial use, but rather a question of when they will arrive. The safety of these vehicles is a necessary and ongoing discussion. In current research, a consensus is reached that crashes occurmainly due to human error. This human error is either due to negligence of the driving activity, like drunk driving or texting while driving, or due to incorrect decision making at critical moments. This study focuses on the topic of traffic safety with the principle of herd immunity in mind. It is theorised that crash risk can behave similarly to how a virus behaves (where crash risk is the chance that a crash occurs at a certain point in time). It spreads and infects vulnerable members of the population. The aim of this study is to determine whether the principle of herd immunity can be applied to car traffic, and if so, to what extent they can be compared through an impact assessment. The research question attached to this is: "How is traffic safety influenced by connected (automated) vehicles considering the concept of herd immunity?"