Platooning of connected automated vehicles on freeways: a bird’s eye view
DOI: 10.1016/j.trpro.2021.11.064
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
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Summary
This paper provides a comprehensive review of vehicle platooning for connected automated vehicles (CAVs) on freeways, aiming to consolidate existing knowledge and identify research gaps. The authors address the evolution of platooning research from early 1970s experiments focused on fuel efficiency to modern studies encompassing traffic flow, safety, and sustainability. The review was conducted using a semi-structured approach, selecting high-impact publications from the Scopus database and employing backward snowballing to identify relevant literature. The analysis excludes string stability control strategies, focusing instead on the operational impacts of platooning typologies, including vehicle types, platoon length, information flow topologies, formation policies, and car-following behaviors. The findings indicate that platooning significantly enhances traffic throughput by allowing smaller inter-vehicle spacings, potentially doubling or tripling capacity at intersections and quintupling it on freeways under favorable conditions. However, these benefits are contingent on CAV penetration rates, estimated between 15% and 50%, and are complicated by interactions with human-driven vehicles (HDVs), which may cause congestion or risky maneuvers. Regarding safety, while internal platoon coordination reduces rear-end collision risks, interactions with HDVs introduce new hazards due to human behavioral adaptations, such as imitating platoon spacing or aggressive overtaking. Furthermore, the human factor remains critical; driver takeover times during automation disengagement vary significantly based on distraction levels and secondary tasks, posing risks in high-speed, close-spacing scenarios. Environmentally, platooning yields substantial energy savings, primarily through reduced aerodynamic drag. Fuel savings range from 10% to 30%, with followers achieving greater reductions than leaders. These benefits are particularly pronounced for heavy trucks and are expected to increase with fully automated electric vehicles. The authors conclude that while platooning offers significant potential for reducing congestion, accidents, and emissions, current research lacks realism in several areas. Key gaps include the need to study heterogeneous platoons, dynamic information flow topologies, mixed traffic environments, and the specific behavioral responses of human drivers. The paper emphasizes that future studies must account for non-linear systems and stochastic disturbances to fully realize the benefits of cooperative driving.
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | Crossref | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-20 |
| archive | success | openalex | — | — | 5 | 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 |
| enrich | success | openalex | — | — | 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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