Platoon-Based Lane Access Control for Mixed Vehicle Travel
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Solution Overview
Problem
When vehicles of different types, such as passenger cars, travel in a lane designated for specific vehicles like trucks or buses, congestion occurs in other lanes while the designated lane remains vacant, leading to inefficient use of road capacity.
Innovation Solution
A travel support system that includes a management server to form vehicle trains based on shared travel preferences, allowing vehicles of different types to use the designated lane when traveling in a convoy, and inhibiting entry when not part of a convoy, using a combination of manual and automated driving assistance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If vehicles of different types travel in lanes designated for specific vehicle types, then road capacity utilization is improved, but lane order and traffic organization deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts lane access rights based on real-time conditions. Vehicles of different types are conditionally permitted to use designated lanes when forming platoons, while maintaining restrictions when not platooning. This dynamic approach allows the system to optimize road capacity utilization while preserving lane organization through context-dependent rule application.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the operational parameters of lane usage by introducing platoon status as a conditional factor. When vehicles form a platoon, the lane type restriction parameter is modified to allow different vehicle types, thereby improving road capacity utilization without permanently disrupting lane order.
2Stability of the object's composition
If vehicles of different types are restricted from designated lanes, then lane order is maintained, but road capacity utilization deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
Rather than maintaining static restrictions, the system dynamically permits different vehicle types in designated lanes when they form organized platoons. This dynamic permission structure maintains lane order through systematic organization while improving road capacity utilization by allowing flexible vehicle type distribution based on platoon formation.
3Productivity
If platooning is encouraged for mixed-type vehicles, then road capacity utilization is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The travel support device performs multiple functions: it detects platoon formation, determines vehicle types, manages lane permission, and provides travel support. By consolidating these functions into a single multi-functional system, the patent improves road capacity utilization through platooning while managing system complexity through functional integration rather than separate dedicated systems.
Data Source
AI summary
A travel support device supports vehicle traveling. The travel support device includes one or more processors. The one or more processors are configured to execute travel management processing when a target vehicle is traveling on a road having a specific lane in which a specific type of vehicle preferentially travels. The target vehicle is of a different type from the specific type. The travel management processing includes travel permission processing of permitting the target vehicle to travel in the specific lane when the target vehicle is traveling in a vehicle train being a train of vehicles that perform platooning, and entry inhibition processing of inhibiting entry of the target vehicle into the specific lane when the target vehicle is not traveling in the vehicle train.