Analysis of Strategies for Truck Platooning: Hybrid Strategy

Trucks typically use the same infrastructure as cars do, and this imposes negative effects on the overall traffic operations. To mitigate such effects as well as their negative environmental impacts, platooning of trucks can be considered a potential solution. For platooning a set of trucks, two main strategies are typically assumed: a catch-up strategy (i.e., the upstream trucks accelerate to catch up with the leading trucks) and a slow-down strategy (i.e., the leading trucks decelerate so that the upstream trucks can catch up and platoon with them). The behavior of trucks when platooning with either of these two strategies was analyzed. Then a hybrid platooning strategy was developed that combined the two approaches in an optimal manner. The performance of the hybrid strategy was further analyzed and compared with that of the individual approaches. Results show that the hybrid strategy is the most general scheme capable of forming a platoon in various cases. Moreover, it is the fastest strategy considering the required time for platooning. In regard to performance, the hybrid strategy is capable of forming a platoon using the maximum platooning speeds of trucks. These characteristics make it a suitable strategy for large-scale deployment in truck platooning.