Reversal of Travel Time between Zipper and Non-Zipper Mergings on Highway Traffic under the Existence of Vehicles Going Straight

Abstract

: Heavy traffic congestion often occurs at an intersection of highway traffic. For releasing this congestion, we compare "zipper" and "non-zipper" mergings by numerical simulations. The "zipper" merging is the alternating merging of vehicles on two lanes and achieved only by the local communication of vehicles before merging, while the "nonzipper" merging is the disorderly merging of vehicles. In simulations we use a stochastic cellular automaton model for traffic with a slow-to-start rule. Numerical results show that the travel time of the "zipper" merging is shorter (longer) than that of the "non-zipper" merging in the case of a strong (resp. weak) slow-to-start effect. Moreover, it is observed that this reversal is strongly affected by the ratio of vehicles going straight without changing lanes.

Early Gapping and Platoon Merging Strategies for Autonomous Vehicles using Local Controllers

“…However, it has not been proved to increase throughput [16]. Nishi, Miki [17] used simulations to show the advantages of the zipper method in cases where slow-to-start effects are stronger, i.e., when vehicles acceleration and deceleration are delayed, as occurs with manually driven vehicles. However, regarding cooperative adaptive cruise control on a straight road or a lane change and merge maneuvers, research supports collaborative driving of coupled platoons (or convoys) [18].…”