Development and evaluation of a vehicle platoon guidance strategy at signalized intersections considering fuel savings

摘要

It is a common traffic phenomenon for vehicles to form a platoon to pass through intersections. This paper presents efforts to investigate the fuel saving potential of an optimization model based on vehicle platoon guidance strategy (VPGS) at signalized intersections. The VPGS-based optimization model includes five steps: (1) dynamic vehicle platoon recognition, (2) formulation of running time for vehicle platoons passing through the intersection, (3) analysis of the leading vehicle trajectory, (4) analysis of the following vehicle trajectories to generate a complete platoon trajectory set, and (5) optimization of the platoon trajectory considering fuel savings. A vehicle specific power (VSP) based approach is applied to estimate fuel consumption. A typical signalized intersection in Beijing is selected to verify the optimization model. The proposed optimization model can quantitatively control the fuel saving effects. The results show that VPGS has significant potential for fuel savings without increasing vehicle travel time, and the average fuel consumption per vehicle decreased by about 30%.