Safety in Vehicle Platooning: A Systematic Literature Review
DOI: 10.1109/tits.2016.2598873
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
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Summary
This paper addresses the critical need for a comprehensive safety analysis of vehicle platooning, a cooperative driving mode where vehicles travel in close formation to improve traffic throughput and energy efficiency. While safety is universally recognized as a primary concern in platooning literature, existing research is scattered and largely focused on string stability under normal operating conditions. This study aims to synthesize current knowledge regarding safety hazards, analysis methods, and proposed solutions, while identifying gaps for future research. The authors conducted a systematic literature review and mapping study to answer five specific research questions concerning the characteristics of existing literature, application contexts, safety analysis methods, identified hazards, and proposed safety solutions. The methodology involved a rigorous search process using the Scopus and IEEE Xplore databases, supplemented by backward and forward snowballing techniques to ensure comprehensive coverage. The search query focused on "platooning AND safety," and papers were screened against strict inclusion criteria, requiring explicit safety analysis or hazard reporting. Exclusion criteria filtered out non-English papers, those merely mentioning safety without analysis, and studies focused solely on control algorithms or string stability. The final dataset comprised 22 primary studies published between 1999 and 2016. These studies were classified and analyzed using a structured data collection form to extract information relevant to the five research questions. The results reveal that the literature is geographically distributed across North America, Europe, and Asia, with a shift in focus from passenger cars in early studies to heavy trucks in recent years. The primary objectives of platooning have evolved from increasing road capacity to reducing energy consumption through aerodynamic drag reduction. The review identified that established system safety analysis methods, such as Fault-Tree Analysis and ISO 26262 functional safety standards, are rarely applied to platooning as a system-of-systems. Instead, many studies rely on simulations or limited component-level analyses. Identified hazards include communication failures, sensor faults, and human factors related to platoon formation and dissolution. Proposed solutions often focus on technical fixes like improved braking systems or impact-absorbing bumpers, but lack comprehensive strategies for managing the complex interactions between automated systems and human drivers. The significance of this work lies in its identification of critical gaps in platooning safety research. The authors conclude that current safety analyses are insufficient because they treat platooning as an isolated vehicle problem rather than a complex system-of-systems involving multiple actors and communication layers. Key outstanding issues include the need for refined safety analysis methods suitable for systems-of-systems, strategies to handle vehicle variability, and solutions for human factors challenges. The paper argues that achieving safe platooning requires moving beyond string stability to address component failures, mixed traffic interactions, and the broader business ecosystem of cooperating and competing actors. This systematic review provides a foundational roadmap for future research to ensure that automated platooning technologies can be deployed safely and effectively.
Provenance
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | OpenAlex-citations | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-20 |
| archive | success | unpaywall | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-26 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-26 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-20 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-20 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-20 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-20 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 6 | 2026-06-20 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-26; verification: verified.
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- Synthesis & Review: research agenda