Autonomous Vehicles and Road Safety: From Simulation to Real-World Impact

Dear Colleagues,

Autonomous vehicles promise a major advancement towards increased mobility and easement of traffic congestion while boosting road safety across all transportation modes by mitigating human error, a primary cause of roadways crashes. Projections indicate that by 2030, 60% of all vehicles on the roads will feature at least Level 2 automation. As of today, fully and semi-autonomous pilot programs have been deployed in over 31 major cities, many of which operate in fully uncontrolled environments. Additionally, advancements in autonomous vehicle simulation methodologies promise to proactively improve safety performance prior to deployment. However, autonomous vehicles are still not perfect and operations have reported fatal crashes, unsafe and inconsistent behavior, the inability to detect obstructions or other road users and blatant traffic violations. This Special Issue offers readers an insight into some of the lessons learned from automated vehicle testing and novel methodologies used to understand and improve road safety performance for all road users. Key topics will include the following: 

• Vehicle automation
• Safety performance testing
• Impacts on crash severity
• Human–machine interaction
• Advanced driver assistance systems
• Pilot deployments
• Simulation methodologies
• Vulnerable road users
• Sensor fusion
• V2X Communications

Dr. Austin Valentine Angulo
Dr. Zilin Bian
Guest Editors

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