United States Department of Transportation
i
Impact Assessments of Automated Truck Platooning on Highway Traffic Flow and Adjacent Drivers
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2019-08-01
[PDF-2.74 MB]
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Edition:Final Report 4/01/2018 – 5/31/2019
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Abstract:Automated Truck Platooning (ATP) enables a group of commercial trucks to move safely together with higher speeds and shorter headways between them. By assisting truck drivers and reducing human error, ATPs are expected to improve traffic safety. Since 2013, the performance of ATPs has been investigated through several research efforts that included data from selected locations across the United States. However, the success of ATPs in the future strongly depends on how other drivers on the road interact with them. A review of the literature in the field of ATP revealed that research has been more focused on the ATP and its drivers. There is little research on the driving behavior of other vehicles in the roadway interacting with ATPs. To address this issue, for this project, the NJIT research team investigated how vehicles surrounding the ATPs react to their presence by using a hybrid simulation framework integrating a driving simulator and a microscopic traffic simulator in real time. Through extensive simulation experiments with human participants, it was discovered that when they approach an ATP, 1) most drivers maintain or increase their speed in order to pass the ATP as soon as possible; and 2) around one-third of drivers tend to stay in their lane and increase their speed in order to compete with the ATP and avoid being passed. When an ATP changes lanes to exit the highway, about one-half of drivers brake, with or without a lane change, in order to keep a safe distance from the ATP. Furthermore, in case a driver wants to take the exit on the right and the ATP is driving in the right lane, about one-half of the drivers brake to tailgate the ATP and then take the exit when the ATP has cleared; the other drivers increase their speed to either overtake or cut-in to the ATP. In addition, given that a driver wants to merge to the mainline from the right and the ATP is driving in the right lane, more than sixty percent of drivers decrease their speed and merge after the ATP has cleared the entrance area. This percentage is higher for larger platoons. It is also revealed that the drivers of the surrounding vehicles of the ATPs prefer the right lane of a three-lane roadway, rather the center or left lane, to be dedicated to ATPs.
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