The expectation from automated vehicles has been increasing in recent years. Potential advantages for automated vehicles include driving safety, traffic efficiency, and positive environmental outcomes. To evaluate the extent to which automated vehicles are advantageous against conventional vehicles, this paper presents a simple car-following model, named the linked vehicle model, which reflects the capabilities of automated vehicles and the interaction between adjacent automated vehicles. The idea behind linked vehicle model is inspired by the collective motion of self-propelled particles in nature and the study of vehicle platooning from the Safe Road Trains for the Environment project. Moreover, the model is integrated into a traffic simulator in order to evaluate the performance of automated vehicles in an ideal circumstance. Comparisons with other representative car-following models are also provided, and they show that linked vehicle model achieves both optimal microscopic and macroscopic performance. Simulated results also show that linked vehicle model attains the best fuel economy and the lowest pollutant emissions.

中文翻译：

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关联车辆模型：自动车辆的简单跟车模型

近年来，人们对自动驾驶汽车的期望越来越高。自动驾驶汽车的潜在优势包括驾驶安全、交通效率和积极的环境成果。为了评估自动驾驶汽车相对于传统汽车的优势程度，本文提出了一个简单的跟车模型，称为链接车辆模型，它反映了自动驾驶汽车的能力以及相邻自动驾驶汽车之间的相互作用。链接车辆模型背后的想法受到自然界中自推进粒子的集体运动和环境安全道路列车项目对车辆排队的研究的启发。此外，该模型被集成到交通模拟器中，以评估自动车辆在理想情况下的性能。还提供了与其他有代表性的跟车模型的比较，它们表明链接车辆模型实现了最佳的微观和宏观性能。仿真结果还表明，链接车辆模型获得了最佳的燃油经济性和最低的污染物排放。