Platoon-based autonomous vehicle speed optimization near signalized intersections

Platooning has recently been the focus of many researchers from academia and industry due to the positive impacts it has shown on the highway traffic, such as road capacity improvement. However, the impacts of platoon formation in urban areas, especially the effects on idling time near signalized intersections has not been addressed in detail. This paper investigates the effects of autonomous vehicle platooning on average idling time around signalized intersections. Speed optimization is proposed to allow vehicles to decide in a decentralized manner whether to be part of the platoon or not such that the average idling time and number of stops are minimized. Simulation is conducted and analysis results are provided, investigating the performance of the proposed scheme in terms of average idling time and average number of stops at a signalized intersection.