Erasing Lane Changes From Roads: A Design of Future Road Intersections

Imagine in the future that autonomous vehicles coordinated and guided by signal-free autonomous intersections are able to pass through the intersections immediately after the vehicles in the conflicting direction leave. Meanwhile, with the coordination of the autonomous intersections, autonomous vehicles on any approaching lane are able to turn onto any downstream lane, expecting that driving in such a road system, autonomous vehicles can reach their destinations without any on-road lane changes, and high traffic efficiency will be achieved as well as great traffic safety. To draw the picture in detail, this paper designs a signal-free autonomous intersection with all-direction turn lanes (ADTL) under the environment of autonomous vehicles, and proposes a conflict-avoidance-based approach to coordinate all approaching vehicles in different directions. Communicating with the approaching autonomous vehicles and utilizing the approach, the autonomous ADTL intersection is able to coordinate the approaching vehicles in all directions and guide them to safely and efficiently pass through the intersection. Two simulation scenarios are conducted in a road network with an isolated intersection composed of four three-lane arms. One scenario validates the collision-free design of the system, and the other shows that the designed ADTL intersection outperforms the conventional signal controlled intersection in terms of traffic efficiency, and is potentially better than the autonomous intersection with specific-direction turn lanes. The autonomous ADTL intersection can be an important basis for designing a future autonomous urban road traffic system.