Despite the progress that has been made with driverless technology in recent years, and indeed despite the marketing hype from the likes of Tesla, the time when fully autonomous vehicles will be let loose on public roads seems as far away as ever.

According to research from the University of New South Wales, if they do make it onto our roads, it will probably be in dedicated driverless lanes.

Space to themselves

The researchers used computer modeling of a variety of scenarios, which revealed that traffic flow and safety were significantly improved when there was a hybrid network of automated vehicles, legacy vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists.  The researchers argue that it’s vital that the transport network is fully prepared for autonomous vehicles or their entry into the market will be significantly delayed.

“Traffic congestion costs the economy billions of dollars every year in all the extra time spent commuting. The proposed model will help minimize interaction with legacy vehicles and reduce overall congestion on the road,” they say.

“The mix of autonomous vehicles and legacy vehicles will cause issues on the road network unless there is proper modeling during this transition phase. If we get caught out and we’re not ready, we won’t reap the full benefits of the technology behind these autonomous vehicles.”

A worthwhile disruption

While giving driverless cars their own lane might cause some temporary disruption to legacy drivers who will probably have to lose some space to accommodate it, the authors argue that it’s feasible.

“If you look at our existing network, we already have something similar with dedicated bus lanes—so we’re not reinventing the wheel here,” they say.  “Freeways are also the best network of car lanes to trial as they have dedicated entry and exit points where drivers can automatically switch on and off their automated features.”

They also argue that greater use of autonomous technologies could reduce congestion on the roads, which would also benefit legacy drivers.  This would be especially so if the transport network was designed to utilize variable signboards to change lane designations depending on the live traffic conditions.

“Our modeling accounts for changing traffic conditions. For example, during non-peak hour times when we don’t need a lane for autonomous vehicles, we can have all lanes open for legacy vehicles,” the researchers say.  “Due to the minimal infrastructure, our proposed model also has the potential to design ramp metering for freeway networks to help regulate the flow of traffic during peak hour.”