Autonomous vehicle impact on improving road network vulnerability

The present article aims to identify critical roads on a macroscopic road network by the road characteristics and traffic parameters on the operability of the whole network; such as length, distance from the centre, speed, number of lanes, and number of connectors. This can provide a useful tool to have more understanding of which road characteristics have a higher impact on the network vulnerability. The second part of the article discusses a simulation of the predicted impact of AVs on the vulnerability of the network by analysing the effect of different AV scenarios on network operability in normal conditions and if roads are eliminated. In order to achieve these objectives, a case study area of Budapest, Hungary, was taken as the base model for the study. This open access article is available from European Transport Research Review at https://doi.org/10.1186/s12544-022-00548-z