Roadworks Warning – Closure of a Lane, the impact of C-ITS messages

By now, it is widely acknowledged among stakeholders and academia that infrastructures will have to be composed both by a physical component and a digital one. The deployment of technologies exploiting dedicated short-range communications is viewed as the most cost-effective solution to face the foreseen growth of mobility. Still, little has been done to define the best implementation logic of DSRC. Aim of this paper is to frame the possible impacts arising by the implementation of a cooperative intelligent transport system (C-ITS)-use case: roadworks warning—closure of a lane, and, in order to achieve this result, microsimulations are exploited. The results are intended to support both road operators and car-makers in defining the best operational logics and the possible benefits achievable by presenting the cooperative message at a certain distance for certain market penetrations. Moreover, if the C-ITS message actually entails benefits or simply disrupts the upstream traffic should be assessed in advance, before implementing the system. The obtained results show that the risk of disruption and of reduction in traffic efficiency arises at lower market penetration levels. Nevertheless, a consistent trend in delay reduction is recorded upstream the roadworks, the highest reduction being equal to 8.66%. Moreover, the average speed at the roadworks entrance on the closing lane increases by a difference equal to around 10 km/h, while the average time in the queue at the highest market penetration reduces by 60 s on the open lane and 25 s on the closing one. These presented results reflect the way the traffic shifts from the slow to the fast lane thanks to the C-ITS system and effectively frames both the potentialities and the risks of the system.