Platooning as a Service (PlaaS): A Sustainable Transportation Framework for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles

TL;DR

This paper introduces PlaaS, a decision-support platform for vehicular platooning that promotes sustainable transportation by modeling pricing and participation decisions as a Stackelberg game, analyzing economic and environmental impacts.

Contribution

It formulates the PlaaS platform as a Stackelberg game and derives equilibrium conditions, providing novel insights into pricing strategies and environmental benefits in autonomous vehicle platooning.

Findings

Higher PSP profit from high delay-cost vehicles at high velocities.

Fuel savings are maximized at moderate platoon velocities.

Government subsidies can significantly reduce CO2 emissions.

Abstract

Vehicular platooning is a well-known transportation technique that helps reduce fuel consumption, carbon emissions, and road congestion. When integrated with Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) technologies, platooning enhances the overall safety and efficiency of the transportation system. This article presents Platooning as a Service (PlaaS) platform, a decision-support framework to promote sustainable transportation through platooning. We have formulated this problem as a Stackelberg game, with the platoon service provider (PSP) as the leader and the service users as the followers. The PSP sets the pricing policy, and the follower responds by choosing the distance to be travelled with the platoon. The optimal service contract between the PSP and the follower vehicle is established with the Stackelberg equilibrium, which is derived using Karush-Kuhn-Tucker optimality conditions. Additionally, we have examined the impact of government subsidies on the PlaaS platform in reducing carbon emissions. Our model has been applied to a specific example problem to illustrate the benefits for both players. We have also derived managerial insights through sensitivity analysis, exploring the effect of different velocity levels, vehicle dimensions, government subsidies, and operational urgency on the utilities of the players and CO2 emissions. Our analysis shows that PSP gains a higher profit from high delay-cost vehicles performing time-critical operations with higher platoon velocity. However, the benefits related to fuel consumption are only realized at moderate platoon velocities.