Traffic Control Via Platoons of Intelligent Vehicles for Saving Fuel Consumption in Freeway Systems

In this letter a coupled PDE-ODE model describing the interaction between the bulk traffic flow and a platoon of connected vehicles is adopted to develop a control action aiming at reducing the fuel consumption of the overall traffic flow. The platoon is modeled as a capacity restriction acting on the surrounding traffic. The trajectory of the initial and final points of the platoon are optimized by means of a model predictive control strategy, acting on the speeds of the front-end and back-end of the platoon, thus resulting in controlling both the speed and the length of the platoon. The approach is assessed in simulations.