Route planning and benefit assessment of container drayage platooning considering truck laden-or-empty state

Abstract

This study investigates the local container drayage problem in semi-automated platooning mode, focusing on the effect of laden-or-empty state of trucks on platoon fuel consumption. The fuel economy characteristics of platoon trucks are described according to the change in the laden-or-empty state of the truck after the platoon serves the customer while considering the sequence of the truck in the platoon. Accordingly, a mixed integer linear programming model for the truck and driver route planning problem is developed, and the lower bound of the problem is analyzed. A simulated annealing algorithm is designed to solve the problem efficiently. Finally, a series of numerical experiments are conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm, assess the benefits of the platooning mode considering truck laden-or-empty state, and analyze the influences of some key parameters.