Development of an Innovation Corridor Testbed for Shared Electric Connected and Automated Transportation

As part of the City of Riverside’s Smart-City initiative, UC Riverside researchers have developed an Innovation Corridor testbed for enabling shared electric connected and automated transportation research. This Innovation Corridor testbed is located in Riverside California, and consists of a six-mile section of University Avenue between the UC Riverside campus and downtown Riverside. The testbed supports various transportation modes including passenger vehicles, trucks, transit (e.g., RTA buses), bicycles, and various forms of micro-mobility. This corridor is continuously being instrumented with various infrastructure equipment to support research in shared electric connected and automated transportation. Specifically for this project, the corridor has been equipped with roadside communications equipment and advanced traffic signal controllers at several key intersections, to help improve safety, mobility and environmental sustainability. With this initial instrumentation, we have then conducted connected vehicle experimentation that utilize the signal phase and timing (SPaT) data from these intersections to smooth traffic flow and reduce emissions. For this Innovation Corridor, a high-fidelity simulation environment was also developed to evaluate potential connected vehicle strategies. A variety of Eco-Approach and Departure (EAD) connected vehicle experiments have been conducted and evaluated, both in simulation and in the real-world. As part of the simulation ecosystem, we have compared the energy and emissions modeling results to see which best matches the real-world measurements. View the NCST Project Webpage