A Self-organising System Combining Self-adaptive Traffic Control and Urban Platooning: A Concept for Autonomous Driving

Abstract

Platooning is an approach to coordinate the driving behaviour of vehicles on major roads such as motorways. The aim is to take advantage of, e.g., slipstream effects to reduce cost. We present an approach to transfer the platooning concept to urban road networks of cities. The reduced slipstream effect is compensated by integration with the signalisation infrastructure to dynamically allow for prioritisation of platoons using progressive signal systems (i.e., “green waves”). We define the scenario and derive a research road map towards fully self-organised platoon operations and integrated coordination with self-adaptive and self-organising urban traffic control systems. Starting from both directions, that is, self-organised urban platooning as well as self-organised progressive signal systems in urban road networks, we define the scenario, identify main challenges, and present first results to demonstrate the feasibility of our research agenda.