Truck platooning: A framework to optimize traffic management near the port area of Rotterdam

Future road transportation can be more safe, environmental friendly, accessible and secure. Truck platooning can optimize the collective behavior to reduce fuel consumption and increase safety and throughput. Mixing platoons with other vehicles can reduce these benefits and can influence lane change performance. This research focuses on the impact of large scale truck platooning on traffic flow, efficiency and safety. It uses a descriptive analysis and microscopic modeling to simulate the impact of large scale truck platooning within critical traffic locations such as weaving, merging and diverging areas. The results showed that large scale truck platooning has an impact on the traffic safety and efficiency within these traffic locations compared to the current situation. Lane change performance is influenced by the small inter vehicle distance and length of a platoon. Vehicles have more fluctuations in acceleration and deceleration which is not beneficial for the overall traffic efficiency. A framework of road traffic management strategies is proposed how the negative effects of large scale platooning could be reduced.