An analytical approach for facility location for truck platooning: A case study of an unmanned following truck platooning system in Japan

Truck platooning involves a small convoy of freight vehicles using electronic coupling as an application in automated driving technology, and it is expected to represent a major solution for improving efficiency in truck transportation in the near future. Recently, there have been several trials regarding truck platooning with major truck manufacturers and logistics companies on public roads in the United States, European countries and Japan. There is a need to locate a facility for the formation of truck platooning to realize the unmanned operation of trucks following in a platoon. In this study, we introduce the current status of truck platooning in Japan and present the optimal location model for truck platooning using the continuous approximation model with a numerical experiment, considering the case in Japan. We derived the optimal locational strategy for the combination of the long-haul ratio and the cost factor of platooning. With parameters estimated for several scenarios for the deployment of truck platooning in Japan, the numerical results show that the optimal locational strategy for a platoon of manned vehicles and a platoon with unmanned following vehicles is the edge of the local region, and that for a platoon of fully automated vehicles is the center of the region.