Truck Platooning Under Real Traffic Conditions: First Insights on Behavioral Adaptations and Gap Preference of Professional Drivers.

Objective: The aim of the study was to investigate (1) how different gap sizes are perceived by professional truck drivers under real traffic conditions and (2) whether semi-automated platoon driving leads to changes in driving behavior of subsequent manual driving.

Background: Platoon driving is a current branch in the development of automated driving in which two or more vehicles build a convoy. The lead vehicle is controlled manually while following vehicles are electronically coupled to it and drive semi-automated with small gaps in order to achieve a better traffic flow and potential fuel savings.

Method: In a real road experiment, 10 trained professional truck drivers completed a total of 33 test drives with a two-truck platoon on the German highway A9 with a gap size of either 15 or 21 m, in the leading and the following vehicle.

Results: (1) The drivers experienced both gap sizes as comfortable and preferred the smaller gap size of 15 m. (2) Both gap sizes led to significantly higher standard deviation of lane position in post- compared to pre-platoon driving. No significant difference in distance keepings in post- compared to pre-platoon driving occurred. Qualitative data give hints on difficulties, when switching back to regular truck driving.

Conclusion: The results implicate that small gap sizes are perceived as comfortable by drivers and that platoon driving has an influence on subsequent manual driving.

Application: Countermeasures to behavioral adaptations should be considered in order to ensure a safe conduction of platoon driving.