Platoon formation maximization through centralized routing and departure time coordination
For traffic management and autonomous vehicle systems, this work provides a method to enhance platooning benefits, though it is an incremental extension of existing coordination and routing techniques.
This paper tackles the problem of maximizing platoon formation for fuel savings by centrally coordinating vehicle routes and departure times. The coordinated approach significantly increases platoon driving time compared to ad hoc formation, with results demonstrated on a grid network.
Platooning allows vehicles to travel with small intervehicle distance in a coordinated fashion thanks to vehicle-to-vehicle connectivity. When applied at a larger scale, platooning will create significant opportunities for energy savings due to reduced aerodynamic drag, as well as increased road capacity and congestion reduction resulting from shorter vehicle headways. However, these potential savings are maximized if platooning-capable vehicles spend most of their travel time within platoons. Ad hoc platoon formation may not ensure a high rate of platoon driving. In this paper we consider the problem of central coordination of platooning-capable vehicles. By coordinating their routes and departure times, we can maximize the fuel savings afforded by platooning vehicles. The resulting problem is a combinatorial optimization problem that considers the platoon coordination and vehicle routing problems simultaneously. We demonstrate our methodology by evaluating the benefits of a coordinated solution and comparing it with the uncoordinated case when platoons form only in an ad hoc manner. We compare the coordinated and uncoordinated scenarios on a grid network with different assumptions about demand and the time vehicles are willing to wait.