Autonomous Driving Vulnerability Analysis Under Mixed Traffic Conditions in a Simulated Living Laboratory Environment for Sustainable Smart Cities

The comprehensive evaluation of factors that increase the difficulty of autonomous driving in various complex traffic situations and diverse roadway geometries within living lab environments is of great interest, particularly in developing sustainable urban mobility systems. This study introduces a novel methodology for assessing autonomous driving vulnerabilities and identifying urban traffic segments susceptible to autonomous driving risks in mixed traffic situations where autonomous and manual vehicles coexist. A microscopic traffic simulation network that realistically represents conditions in a living lab demonstration area was used, and twelve safety indicators capturing longitudinal safety and vehicle interaction dynamics were employed to compute an integrated risk score (IRS). The promising weighting of each indicator was derived through decision tree method calibrated with real-world traffic accident data, allowing precise localization of vulnerability hotspots for autonomous driving. The analysis results indicate that an IRS-based hotspot was identified at an unsignalized intersection, with an IRS value of 0.845. In addition, analytical results were examined comprehensively from multiple perspectives to develop actionable improvement strategies that contribute to long-term sustainability, encompassing roadway and traffic facility enhancements, provision of infrastructure guidance information, autonomous vehicle route planning, and enforcement measures. Furthermore, this study categorized and analyzed the characteristics of high-risk road sections with similar geometric features to systematically derive effective traffic safety countermeasures. This research offers a systematic, practical framework for safety evaluation in autonomous driving living labs, delivering actionable guidelines to support infrastructure planning and validate sustainable autonomous mobility.