Changing of Intersection Capacity in Case of Using Autonomous Vehicles

Autonomous vehicles are a new innovation that will havea significant impact in Thailand. It is important to studya change to infrastructure capacity to facilitate the use of autonomous vehicles. To better understand this behavior, the researchers choose Na Luang intersection in Thung Khru, Bangkok to demonstrate impacts of autonomous on the intersection capacity through microsimulation models using PTV Vissim. A penetration rate of autonomous vehicles used in the study includes 5, 20, 60, and 100% of total passenger vehicles. Then, the intersection capacity for each scenario is used to find a capacity adjustment factor. The results show that the intersection capacity is directly related to the proportion of autonomous vehicles. The capacity adjustment factor is greater than 1 for all scenarios where autonomous vehicles are used to substitute all passenger vehicles, and there is an increasing trend when the proportion of autonomous vehicles increases. The capacity adjustment factor (CAF) for Na Luang intersection would reach 1.219 (a capacity increase by 21.9%) when all passenger vehicles are substituted with autonomous vehicles.