Although Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) is a promising technology for Connected and Automated Vehicle (CAV), it is urgent to validate its applicability in real traffic situation. To support the validation, simulation plays a key role, but up-to-date simulation platforms are not generic enough in terms of CACC controller type, background traffic condition, road geometry and traffic control scheme. This paper proposes a generic simulation platform for CACC. It is featured by: i) Enabling evaluation of both CACC-controller performance and its impact on the transportation system; ii) Fast simulation speed for potential real time applications and large-scale simulation; iii) Enabling simulation for human-machine task switching; iv) Compatibility with any CACC controller and any vehicle dynamics model. The proposed platform adopts the off-the-shelf module form VISSIM and develops an enhancement module for CACC simulation. The enhancement module makes it possible to simulate CACC’s decision-making, longitudinal control and vehicle dynamics. Via evaluation, the platform is proven to be fast enough with a real-time simulation of 216 CAVs. Meanwhile, the platform is validated by comparison against the field test and mixed-traffic theory, respectively. Through simulations in the proposed platform, it is revealed that up-to-date CACC technologies have great potential to improve road capacity but also bring risks under partially connected and automated environment.

CICTP