A Taxonomy of Optimization Factors for Platooning

The technical maturity of autonomous driving enables the discussion of beneficial use cases to leverage its full potential. In this paper, we target one such use case: Platooning is the efficient convoying of vehicles by making use of self-driving capabilities and inter-vehicle communication. Many advantages arise from grouping vehicles in platoons with a small inter-vehicle distance, such as energy savings, congestion reduction, and safety improvements. However, due to the diversity of involved stakeholders, numerous objectives have to be balanced to leverage the full potential of platooning. Furthermore, these objectives also depend on various factors that influence their optimization. The vast majority of existent literature only targets a subset of related objectives and underlying factors. This paper provides an overview which categorizes objectives and influencing factors. Additionally, metrics for the evaluation of objective attainment are proposed.