Modeling Stop–and–Go Wave Dissipation under Partial CAV Penetration using a Multi-Class CTM

This paper investigates the dissipation of stop-and
go traffic waves under partial penetration of connected and
autonomous vehicles (CAVs) using a multi-class cell transmission
model. A controlled numerical study was conducted along a
corridor with a localized bottleneck, with experiments varying
CAV penetration levels and smoothing intensities. The validated
results show that even moderate penetration of CAVs substan
tially improves traffic performance: unstable density patterns are
suppressed, shockwave propagation is attenuated, and total delay
decreases monotonically with increasing adoption. Fundamental
diagrams with triangular envelopes confirmed capacity gains
consistent with reduced effective headways, while regression of
the jam front demonstrated qualitative agreement between mea
sured and theoretical shockwave speeds. These findings indicate
that CAVs can deliver network-level benefits well before full
market penetration, supporting their role as a viable strategy
for congestion mitigation. The study contributes both a method
ological framework for evaluating CAV impacts in macroscopic
models and empirical insights to guide deployment and traffic
management policy.