Requirements and expectations for truck platooning - a multidisciplinary perspective
DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1003072
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
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Summary
This study addresses the complex requirements and expectations for implementing truck platooning technology within the road freight transport ecosystem. Motivated by the need for sustainable transport solutions that balance environmental goals with operational efficiency, the research highlights that successful adoption depends not only on technological capability but also on stakeholder acceptance. The authors argue that a multidisciplinary perspective is essential because the sector involves multiple actors with conflicting interests, including logistics companies, drivers, regulators, and road operators. The primary goal was to map the specific requirements for deploying truck platooning, focusing particularly on the perspective of logistics companies as the central adopters of the technology. The research was conducted as part of the TRAIN project using a qualitative, multi-actor survey design. The authors built an actor network map to identify relationships and roles within the freight transport ecosystem. Data collection involved 11 focus groups and semi-structured interviews with various stakeholders, including 30 truck drivers, 16 representatives from logistics companies, road operators, and regulators. The paper specifically analyzes data from two focus groups with Portuguese logistics service providers. Participants discussed their representations of automated driving, the impacts of platooning on their activities, and future expectations. The analysis aimed to identify barriers, risks, and key factors necessary for implementation, structuring the findings into tiers of requirements. The results identify three main areas of requirements from logistics companies: labor, safety and liability, and transport and logistics operations. Logistics companies view truck platooning as attractive only if it improves operational efficiency through cost reduction, schedule optimization, and route optimization. However, significant uncertainties remain regarding fuel savings, infrastructure limitations, and regulatory constraints such as shift durations and mandatory resting periods. The study links these requirements to three key research domains: policy and regulation, operations research and management, and human factors and human-machine interaction. Policy gaps between European countries and stricter regulations compared to the US were noted as potential barriers. Furthermore, the success of implementation is heavily dependent on addressing driver working conditions and ensuring safe, usable human-machine interaction. The significance of this work lies in its systemic approach to understanding the road freight transport ecosystem. It concludes that truck platooning cannot be viewed solely as a technological issue but requires integrated solutions across policy, management, and human factors. The study emphasizes that logistics companies are crucial intermediaries who must find the technology attractive to drive adoption, while regulators and road operators act as facilitators. The findings suggest that future research should continue to explore the perspectives of other actors, particularly drivers, and include empirical assessments such as driving simulator experiments to evaluate safety in risky situations. This multidisciplinary framework provides a roadmap for developing safe, accepted, and efficient automated freight transport solutions.
Key finding
Logistics companies identify labor, safety and liability, and transport and logistics as the three main requirement areas for truck platooning, which correspond to the research domains of human factors, operations management, and policy regulation.
Methodology
survey
Sample size: 48
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via author_sweep_intake on 2026-05-28.
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | author_sweep | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-28 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-06 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-28 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 15 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
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