Freight transport platoon coordination and departure time scheduling under travel time uncertainty

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Freight transport platoon coordination and departure time scheduling under travel time uncertainty

Zhang, Wei / Jenelius, Erik / Ma, Xiaoliang

Highlights•The off-road platoon coordination problem is formulated considering travel time, fuel and schedule miss costs.•The impacts of travel time uncertainty are studied and general analytical results are provided.•Cases involving a common route, converging routes and diverging routes are studied.•Optimal platoon coordination and departure time strategies are derived.•Threshold difference between scheduled arrival times of vehicles for beneficial platooning is studied.

AbstractThe paper formulates and analyzes a freight transport platoon coordination and departure time scheduling problem under travel time uncertainty. The expected cost minimization framework accounts for travel time cost, schedule miss penalties and fuel cost. It is shown that platooning is beneficial only when scheduled arrival times differ less than a certain threshold. Travel time uncertainty typically reduces the threshold schedule difference for platooning to be beneficial. Platooning in networks is less beneficial on converging routes than diverging routes, due to delay at the merging point. The model provides valuable insights regarding platooning benefits for freight transport planning.