Multi-Fleet Platoon Matching: A Game-Theoretic Approach

TL;DR

This paper models the platoon matching problem for trucks with different destinations as a non-cooperative game, proposing an algorithm to find stable departure time strategies that optimize fuel savings.

Contribution

It introduces a game-theoretic framework for platoon matching, proving the problem is an exact potential game and providing a best response dynamics algorithm for equilibrium.

Findings

Nash equilibrium matches trucks with same departure times into platoons.

The proposed algorithm converges to a stable solution efficiently.

Fuel savings at equilibrium are comparable to cooperative solutions.

Abstract

We consider the platoon matching problem for a set of trucks with the same origin, but different destinations. It is assumed that the vehicles benefit from traveling in a platoon for instance through reduced fuel consumption. The vehicles belong to different fleet owners and their strategic interaction is modeled as a non-cooperative game where the vehicle actions are their departure times. Each truck has a preferred departure time and its utility function is defined as the difference between its benefit from platooning and the cost of deviating from its preferred departure time. We show that the platoon matching game is an exact potential game. An algorithm based on best response dynamics is proposed for finding a Nash equilibrium of the game. At a Nash equilibrium, vehicles with the same departure time are matched to form a platoon. Finally, the total fuel reduction at the Nash equilibrium is studied and compared with that of a cooperative matching solution where a common utility function for all vehicles is optimized.