Platoon recognition using connected vehicle technology

This article presents a mathematical model for real-time platoon recognition using the connected vehicle (CV) technology. Platoon information is a crucial part of traffic signal coordination and is difficult to obtain with traditional technologies such as loop detectors. The past work on platoon recognition using CV is very limited and lacked verification on the applicable range or evaluation of the performance of algorithms. The proposed algorithm is focused on estimating platoon characteristics for signal coordination and adaptive signal control with CV's vehicle-to-vehicle communication and an onboard GPS device. First, the detected platoon is identified by a modified critical time-headway. Then, platoon size and starting and ending times are estimated. Lastly, the filtering process for “qualified” detected platoon is proposed to optimize detectability. The results show that the proposed algorithm can estimate well in various traffic conditions and under both fixed-time and actuated signal control without the need for recalibration. Furthermore, two analytical models to estimate the detection rate are proposed and shown to be close to the numerical results and can be used to estimate the required market penetration ratio for the application without field experiments or microscopic simulation. The accuracy of both the recognition algorithm and detection rate estimation is obtained without relying on inputs that are hard to obtain in practice. Accordingly, the proposed algorithm can be an important part of adaptive signal control focusing on real-time coordination in CV environment.