Improving traffic flow on motorways through individual driver advice: a social dilemma?

Connected Cruise Control (CCC) is an in-car driver support systems that aims to improve throughput in dense motorway traffic by advising drivers how to drive. The system is currently under development within a HTAS project. It will integrate lane advice, headway advice and speed advice. The advice that drivers receive does not always work in their individual benefit. However, collective action by a greater amount of CCC users can improve the traffic situation as a whole, resulting in reduced overall travel time. Therefore CCC runs the risk of creating a social dilemma (a give-some dilemma); A situation where individual road users contribute to a common good (that is traffic flow) while refraining from actions that would work in their individual benefit, but that on the other hand could pose a harm to traffic flow. We present the social dilemma underlying the adoption of CCC and discuss solutions to the dilemma.