A game-theoretic framework for studying truck platooning incentives

Abstract

An atomic congestion game with two types of agents, cars and trucks, is used to model the traffic flow on a road over certain time intervals. In this game, the drivers make a trade-off between the time they choose to use the road, the average velocity of the flow at that time, and the dynamic congestion tax that they are paying to use the road. The trucks have platooning capabilities and therefore, have an incentive for using the road at the same time as their peers. The dynamics and equilibria of this game-theoretic model for the interaction between car traffic and truck platooning incentives are investigated. We use traffic data from Stockholm to validate the modeling assumptions and extract reasonable parameters for the simulations. We perform a comprehensive simulation study to understand the influence of various factors, such as the percentage of the trucks that are equipped with platooning devices on the properties of the pure strategy Nash equilibrium that is learned using a joint strategy fictitious play.