Optimal and Heuristic Approaches for Platooning Systems with Deadlines

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Gomides, Thiago S., Kranakis, Evangelos, Lambadaris, Ioannis, Viniotis, Yannis, Shaikhet, Gennady
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Gomides, Thiago S.
Kranakis, Evangelos
Lambadaris, Ioannis
Viniotis, Yannis
Shaikhet, Gennady
author_facet Gomides, Thiago S.
Kranakis, Evangelos
Lambadaris, Ioannis
Viniotis, Yannis
Shaikhet, Gennady
contents Efficient truck platooning is a key strategy for reducing freight costs, lowering fuel consumption, and mitigating emissions. Deadlines are critical in this context, as trucks must depart within specific time windows to meet delivery requirements and avoid penalties. In this paper, we investigate the optimal formation and dispatch of truck platoons at a highway station with finite capacity \(L\) and deadline constraints \(T\). The system operates in discrete time, with each arriving truck assigned a deadline of \(T\) slot units. The objective is to leverage the efficiency gains from forming large platoons while accounting for waiting costs and deadline violations. We formulate the problem as a Markov decision process and analyze the structure of the optimal policy \(π^\star\) for \(L = 3\), extending insights to arbitrary \(L\). We prove certain monotonicity properties of the optimal policy in the state space \(\mathcal{S}\) and identify classes of unreachable states. Moreover, since the size of \(\mathcal{S}\) grows exponentially with \(L\) and \(T\), we propose heuristics--including conditional and deep-learning based approaches--that exploit these structural insights while maintaining low computational complexity.
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publishDate 2025
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spellingShingle Optimal and Heuristic Approaches for Platooning Systems with Deadlines
Gomides, Thiago S.
Kranakis, Evangelos
Lambadaris, Ioannis
Viniotis, Yannis
Shaikhet, Gennady
Systems and Control
Efficient truck platooning is a key strategy for reducing freight costs, lowering fuel consumption, and mitigating emissions. Deadlines are critical in this context, as trucks must depart within specific time windows to meet delivery requirements and avoid penalties. In this paper, we investigate the optimal formation and dispatch of truck platoons at a highway station with finite capacity \(L\) and deadline constraints \(T\). The system operates in discrete time, with each arriving truck assigned a deadline of \(T\) slot units. The objective is to leverage the efficiency gains from forming large platoons while accounting for waiting costs and deadline violations. We formulate the problem as a Markov decision process and analyze the structure of the optimal policy \(π^\star\) for \(L = 3\), extending insights to arbitrary \(L\). We prove certain monotonicity properties of the optimal policy in the state space \(\mathcal{S}\) and identify classes of unreachable states. Moreover, since the size of \(\mathcal{S}\) grows exponentially with \(L\) and \(T\), we propose heuristics--including conditional and deep-learning based approaches--that exploit these structural insights while maintaining low computational complexity.
title Optimal and Heuristic Approaches for Platooning Systems with Deadlines
topic Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.25564