Associate Professor Ali Hajbabaie was recently interviewed on Charlotte public radio station WFAE about his new study that finds automated vehicles that do not share data with each other wirelessly can cause traffic slowdowns and delays.
“ I think one main takeaway is the effects of connectivity on traffic operations here,” Hajbabaie said in the interview. “When we have connected vehicles, we have already observed that the capacity is improving, travel time is reducing, emissions are reducing — and as a result of that, cities [and] state [transportation departments], if they provide hardware to signalize intersections so that they can communicate with cars that are equipped with wireless systems and share information, I think that would significantly help our traffic in signalized intersections and perhaps in other highway facilities as well.”
Hajbabaie is interested in real-time optimization of large-scale complex engineering systems represented by models with a high degree of realism. His research is focused on traffic operations and control in the presence of connected human-driven and self-driving cars. Hajbabaie and his research group use multi-scale analysis, modeling, and optimization to improve traffic operations. His research is advancing our understanding of cooperative traffic control systems and contributes to the development of future mobility systems, including connected and automated vehicles.