Effects of Cyberattacks on Regional Traffic Networks in a Connected Vehicle Environment

Connected Vehicle (CV) technology aims to enhance information transmission and resource sharing. However, the open-access environment makes the CVs vulnerable to cyberattacks, causing concerns about traffic downgrading or even paralysis. Existing studies on the traffic impact of cyberattacks primarily focus on individual vehicles or queues, ignoring the macro impact of attacks on the road network. To analyze the impact of cyberattacks on road network at a regional level, this paper carries out three works. First, the traffic modelling under two cyberattack models from the queuing scale and the routing scale is provided, respectively. Second, we analyze the general analytical form of cyberattacks causing impacts on regional traffic based on Macroscopic fundamental diagram (MFD) theory and develop an evaluation index of road network efficiency under cyberattacks. Third, according to these two models and the evaluation index, the impacts of cyberattacks on the traffic performance of the road network are analyzed. The results showed that both scale models of cyberattacks affect the MFD, and the road network performance, which makes the network more vulnerable. The results also showed that the rerouting capability of CVs has a significant different effect on the road network performance under different cyberattacks.