Modeling the Impact of Vehicle Platooning on Highway Congestion

Abstract

Vehicle platooning is a promising technology that can lead to significant fuel savings and emission reduction. However, the macroscopic impact of vehicle platoons on highway traffic is not yet well understood. In this article, we propose a new fluid queuing model to study the macroscopic interaction between randomly arriving vehicle platoons and the background traffic at highway bottlenecks. This model, viewed as a stochastic switched system, is analyzed for two practically relevant priority rules: proportional (or mixed) and segmented priority. We provide intuitive stability conditions, and obtain bounds on the long-run average length and variance of queues for both priority rules. We use these results to study how platoon-induced congestion varies with the fraction of platooned vehicles, and their characteristics such as intra-platoon spacing and arrival rate. Our analysis reveals a basic tradeoff between congestion induced by the randomness of platoon arrivals, and efficiency gain due to a tighter intra-platoon spacing. This naturally leads to conditions under which the proportional priority is preferred over segmented priority. Somewhat surprisingly, our analytical results are in agreement with the simulation results based on a more sophisticated two-class cell transmission model.

Analysis of a Stochastic Model for Coordinated Platooning of Heavy-duty Vehicles

“…By analyzing our stochastic model, we are able to analytically characterize these three costs by studying the behavior of between-platoon headways, platoon sizes, and increment of betweenvehicle headways induced by platooning. These quantities are also relevant for studying the interaction between HDV platoons and background traffic sharing common highway segments [15].…”

A Hybrid Queuing Model for Coordinated Vehicle Platooning on Mixed-Autonomy Highways: Training and Validation

“…The HQM can be further abstracted and used for higher-level decisions such as routing [17]. This model is a significant refinement of a preliminary version proposed some of us in [18].…”

Incentivizing Efficient Equilibria in Traffic Networks with Mixed Autonomy

“…Related work. Previous works have shown the potential benefits that autonomous vehicles can have for traffic networks by increasing road capacity through platooning [7], [8], damping shockwaves of slowing vehicles [9], [10], managing merges [11], decongesting freeways in the event of accidents [12], [13], and balancing a supply of vehicles [14]. Relatedly, many works analyze and bound the inefficiency that can arise from network users choosing their routes selfishly [15], including when autonomous vehicles are introduced [3].…”