Autonomous transportation system and methods

A transportation system that manages the behavior of autonomous and manually driven vehicles (AVs and MVs) within a driving environment, the system comprising:

• a wireless communications interface that supports messaging between proximate AVs or MVs, infrastructure devices, pedestrians and any other active moving object in the driving environment;
• wherein the wireless communications interface is operative to send and receive encoded messages to and from vehicles, over an available radio-frequency band, in the driving environment enabling a subsystem of each AVs and a subsystem of each MVs to modify driving behavior including navigational adjustments along a planned driving path to improve traffic flow and avoid collisions based on a location of other AVs, MVs, pedestrians and moving objects in a proximal driving area of the AVs and MVs on roads in the driving environment, wherein the location is determined based on the encoded messages received over the available radio-frequency band and direct obstacle measurements by sensors,
• wherein the encoded messages include information regarding driving rules, the driving rules comprising route priority where the messages exchanged between vehicles determine a higher priority roadway and a lower priority roadway, and
• wherein for entering a yield intersection, the vehicle on the lower priority roadway generates and encodes a message requesting creation of an entry hole, sends the encoded message requesting the creation of the entry hole to AVs and MVs on the higher priority roadway over the available radio-frequency band, and waits for a response message indicating availability of the entry hole, over the available radio-frequency band, before proceeding;
• controlling the vehicle based on the received message to enter the higher priority roadway from the lower priority roadway.