Paper Title
Impact of Inter-Platoon Transfers on Homogeneous Fixed-Lane Platoons

Abstract
Platooning can be implemented in homogeneous or heterogeneous traffic. Research suggests that platooning is more effective in homogeneous traffic because, in heterogeneous traffic, dissimilar preferred velocities, unregulated lane-changes impact traffic negatively. This study is a follow-up on a previous study by the authors (the Plane model), where regimented lane-changes, hierarchical lane-velocities and destination-based platoon-formation were implemented on PLEXE to al- lowed for improvement, and the direct control highway capacity, average velocities and travel time. The limitation of the study was that the strict lane-change policy meant fixed destinations once vehicles formed platoons. This study evaluates the impact of rerouting and inter-platoon transfers between neighboring platoons on the Plane model. Three scenarios were evaluated, conventional traffic scenario, fixed-destination Plane model scenario and modified Plane model scenario where randomly 0-30% of vehicles are rerouted and swapped between platoons. The results were evaluated on mean-travel-times and speeds, throughput, fuel usage and emissions. The results showed the scenarios of the plane model outperformed the conventional scenario. In all evaluation bench- marks except in mean-travel-time, rerouting and inter-platoon-transfers caused marginal decrease in performance compared to the original Plane model. These marginal difference can be seen as fair compromise for the added functionality and flexibility to the model. Keywords - Homogeneous Platoons, Fixed-Route Platoons, Platoon-Member-Transfer, Plexe, Lane-Change.