Real-Time Planning of Platoons Coordination Decisions Based on Traffic Prediction

This paper deals with the optimal speed control of two platoons that share part of their freeway routes and need to perform merging and diverging procedures. The proposed control scheme has a centralized nature and is applied periodically by the platoons coordinator which receives in real time the state of the platoons and the traffic measurements on the network, based on which a traffic prediction is made. Based on this information, the coordinator applies specific optimal control algorithms to decide whether the merger is convenient or not and to compute the optimal speed profiles of the two platoons before the merging, during the shared journey and after the diverging phase.

I. Introduction

One of the most popular transport mode for freight is represented by road transport, which, thanks to its flexibility allows the realization of door-to-door services. At the same time, road haulage has several drawbacks that can be summarized in pollution, traffic congestion and road safety issues. A possible way to mitigate the negative effects of road freight transport is to incentivize the cooperation among haulers. Cooperation among carriers may take place in several ways. For instance, a possible form of cooperation is known as horizontal cooperation. In these policies, a coalition is formed among carriers who are willing to share their transport demand or a portion of it. In this form of cooperation, monetary compensation policies are defined for carriers who give up a trip in favor of a coalition partner. Hence, the final goal is to optimally plan the trips of the carriers so that unprofitable trips are minimized, and monetary profits are maximized, allowing all carriers to benefit from the cooperation [1].