A Comprehensive Study on Autonomous Vehicle Integration for Tırport

Abstract

Although regular road transportation is convenient, it can be difficult for transportation companies to operate. Most issues stem from timetable delays, poor routing plans, and greater transportation costs, including wages, fuel, and operations expenditures. Wind resistance during high-speed transportation increases fuel use, and human error causes safety incidents that increase costs and environmental damage. Therefore, the platooning system is a strategically designed alternative to keep trucks in a convoy using sensors. Thus, the goal of this research is to determine optimized platooning routes in Turkey’s motorway network and the ideal locations for hubs. Also, we would like to explore the potential of platooning technology to reduce fuel consumption, carbon footprint, and transportation time with mathematical modeling and Python code. According to our results, the 5 hubs should be located in Adana, Ankara, Manisa, Istanbul, and Bursa. The greatest percentage saving is achieved by 4 truck platooning systems with an average of 11% and there is reduction of millions kg of CO2 emission in a day. In addition, we conducted a what-if-analysis with a future motorway in Turkey which resulted in an increase of profit to 12%. Finally, we implemented the waiting times of trucks for each other when forming convoys in a hub and according to our results, we discovered that it can be disregarded in each scenario because they are less than 20 minutes. And also even in the worst case, there is a reduction of total empty mileages by up to 1 in 3.