The goals of cooperative driving are to improve the safety and the efficiency of traffic by improving communication between the participants. The basic assumption is that various deficiencies of driver's perception capabilities and behaviour cause a large percentage of the road traffic accidents and are also responsible for loss of efficiency. Thus, cooperative systems should be designed in order to rule out the "human imperfections" by replacing or complementing the drivers. For a number of reasons the correct approach must include the design of an appropriate Man-Machine system, also capable of gradual implementation. This paper, in the first part, describes four basic and realistic applications for the cooperative concept in the motorway environment, together with the reasoning which led to the choice. It is also shown, by looking at stationary traffic conditions, that the Intelligent Cruise Control (ICC), the first of these strategies, is the very basic one. Then, the method which has been used for the technical assessment is described in some detail. Finally, the results of the assessment are shown. The assessment has been performed by means of the SPEACS microsimulator. which has been enhanced within the DOMINC project, in order to obtain quantitative and consistent results.
Abstract