Methodology for Determining Promising Freeway Segments for Truck Platooning

Abstract

Truck platooning, which is a cluster of trucks in support of vehicle-to-vehicle communication and automated longitudinal vehicle control, is a promising method to both operational efficiency and prevent traffic crashes. Although a variety of studies have been conducted to identify the effects of vehicle platooning on traffic stream, we are not aware of any study attempting to identify promising road segments for vehicle platooning. This study aims to develop a methodology for determining the priority of freeway segments that would potentially lead to maximize the effectiveness of truck platooning. Evaluation measures derived in this study includes truck crash rates, the percentage of truck traffic, segment length, and the number of entry and exit points. Weighting values obtained from an analytical hierarchical process (AHP) method were applied to compute the proposed priority score to determine better freeway segment for truck platooning. Results suggested that a 46.9km freeway segment, from Sacheon IC to Sanin JC, was the most promising segment for maximizing the effectiveness of truck platooning. It is expected that the outcome of this study would be effectively used as a fundamental to establish operational strategies for truck platooning.