Overtaking automated truck platoons: Effects of platoon organisations and traffic situation on driving behaviours of nearby manual vehicle drivers
DOI: 10.1016/j.trf.2025.01.026
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
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Summary
This study investigates the behavioral adaptation of manual vehicle drivers when overtaking automated truck platoons, a technology expected to become mainstream within the next decade. While automated platooning offers efficiency and safety benefits, the resulting long, train-like formations present novel challenges for human drivers in mixed traffic. The research addresses a critical gap in existing literature, which has largely focused on car-following or lane-changing behaviors, by specifically examining the complex and risky overtaking process. The study aims to determine how platoon organization—specifically speed, size, and inner gap—and traffic situations influence driver behavior, mental workload, and safety outcomes. The researchers conducted a high-fidelity driving simulation experiment using a motion-based simulator with immersive projection. Thirty-five participants with valid driving licenses completed the study, which employed a repeated-measures design. The experimental variables included platoon speed (80 km/h vs. 100 km/h), platoon size (three vs. five trucks), inner gap between trucks (5 m vs. 25 m), and the presence of a lead vehicle in the adjacent lane. The study distinguished between non-critical scenarios, assessing routine overtaking behavior, and critical scenarios, where the lead vehicle performed abrupt braking to test emergency response. Participants were instructed to drive as if in a hurry to encourage overtaking attempts, and their performance was measured through metrics such as overtaking completion rate, lateral position, speed stability, and subjective mental workload using the NASA-TLX scale. The results revealed significant impacts of platoon characteristics on driver behavior. Higher platoon speeds (100 km/h) prompted more extreme behaviors, leading to either failed overtaking attempts or risky maneuvers. Larger platoons (five trucks) caused drivers to deviate farther from the lane center to maintain greater lateral distance. A larger inner gap (25 m) significantly reduced the proportion of successful overtaking maneuvers, whereas a smaller gap (5 m) extended response times in critical situations without significantly increasing collision probability. Additionally, the presence of a lead vehicle increased drivers’ mental workload and impaired longitudinal stability. These findings indicate that platoon organization directly influences the safety and efficiency of mixed traffic interactions. The significance of this research lies in its practical implications for the operational strategies of automated truck platoons. The findings suggest that platoon parameters, such as speed and inner gap, should be dynamically regulated based on traffic conditions to optimize efficiency while ensuring safety for all road users. By understanding how human drivers adapt to these new formations, stakeholders can design platooning systems that minimize behavioral adaptation risks and enhance the compatibility of automated trucks with existing transportation infrastructure. This study provides essential evidence for managing the transition toward mixed autonomous and manual traffic environments.
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.
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | OpenAlex-citations | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-20 |
| archive | success | unpaywall | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-26 |
| extract | success | pdftotext | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-26 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| enrich | failed | — | — | — | 4 | 2026-06-26 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-20 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 6 | 2026-06-26 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-26; verification: verified.
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- Empirical Findings: behavioral performance data