Operational Planning Issues for Truck Platoons: Vehicle routing and Scheduling

Truck platoon is a transport mode that several trucks drive together at close distances. Due to the aerodynamics, trucks can suffer from less air resistance and thus save their fuel consumption. However, it might not be easy for trucks to create a truck platoon since they usually follow different routes and delivery schedules. In most cases, before joining a platoon, drivers have to wait in a station/hub/highway entrance and even change original routes to meet other trucks, which unavoidably leads to additional delivery costs and waiting time. Therefore, there is not only a trade-off between the benefits and costs of the platoon mode but also an adjustment for the truck's time schedule. The research focuses on the operational planning issues of the truck platoon from the perspective of a central platform. Two research questions are proposed: (a) how to develop an effective heuristic algorithm to jointly optimize the freight network and truck schedule. (b) how many potential benefits a truck-platoon platform can bring and what factors affect its benefits.