Optimization of Lateral Position of Autonomous Trucks (OPLAT)

Introduction of autonomous and connected trucks (ACTs) is expected to result in drastic changes in operational characteristics of freight shipments, which may in turn have significant impacts on efficiency, safety, energy consumption, and infrastructure durability. One such important change would be the formation of truck platoons which will be more feasible and practical with the intelligent technologies existing in ACTs that enable the connection among vehicles and between vehicles and infrastructure. Reducing congestion, braking/accelerating and fuel efficiency are some of reported and expected benefits of the platooning. Yet, such platooning operations may accelerate the damage accumulation within pavement structures because of their similar lateral positions (i.e., wheel wander) within the lane. Therefore, this study develops a platooning control strategy for a fleet of ACTs such that trucks’ lateral shifts within a lane can be explicitly optimized to minimize damage to the pavement, thus significantly reducing maintenance and rehabilitation costs. The efficacy of the proposed strategy was demonstrated through a case study. The results showed that the cost of platooning can be reduced by approximately 0.5 million $/mi depending on the platoon size, pavement thickness and traffic.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AFD30 Standing Committee on General and Emerging Pavement Design.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  ,    
• Authors:
  • Gungor, Osman Erman
  • She, Ruifeng
  • Al-Qadi, Imad L
  • Ouyang, Yanfeng
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 98th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2019-1-13 to 2019-1-17
• Date: 2019

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Pagination: 3p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Autonomous vehicles; Case studies; Connected vehicles; Costs; Optimization; Traffic platooning; Trucks
• Uncontrolled Terms: Damage prevention; Lane positioning; Pavement damage; Vehicle platoon control
• Subject Areas: Highways; Motor Carriers; Operations and Traffic Management; Pavements;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01698440
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 19-05626
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 2 2019 3:41PM