A fuel-efficient approach for platooning systems with ethical decision-making implications

Platooning system is a relevant solution for sustainable freight transportation due to its capability to substantially improve fuel efficiency, safety, and traffic flow. Most of the recent studies focus on the fuel-efficiency aspect while ignoring ethical aspects associated with the short intervehicle distance requirement. Unlike the literature, we address ethical implications that arise during platooning in addition to fuel-efficient improvement. We propose a decision-making algorithm based on a Markov Decision Process (MDP) that is able to switch between classical platooning controllers to improve fuel efficiency while accounting for a harm factor. Numerical results demonstrate the relevance of a joint design of ethical and fuel-efficiency aspects for suitable decisionmaking in platooning systems.