The introduction of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) has far-reaching impacts on the traffic system and society. The Levitate project (EU, Horizon2020, levitate-project.eu) aims to forecast those impacts. Road safety is one of the relevant areas of impact that is analysed in the Levitate project. CAVs influence road safety directly by replacing the human driver, and indirectly due to secondary impacts such as modal split and rate of travel. In order to forecast the road safety impacts of an increasing penetration rate of automatic vehicles several methods are combined.
Microsimulation is used to model traffic behaviour of automated and human driven vehicles in different road networks. Vulnerable road users (pedestrians and cyclists) are not included in the microsimulation model but are affected by the introduction of connected and automated vehicles. Additional safety effects due to a change in modal split are determined by estimating the changes in travel mode and it’s effects on total accident numbers.
By combining the different approaches a more complete overview of the impacts can be made. The goal of this paper is to describe the road safety impacts of increasing CAV penetration in the traffic system as they are identified in the Levitate project.
