Driver behaviour and experience around automated freight vehicle platoons

Abstract

Autonomous vehicles are becoming more common, and the market size is growing. In the truck industry, deploying a platoon of autonomous vehicles is emerging as a response to existing safety and environmental problems. However, before autonomous technology can be applied to all vehicles in a traffic flow, mixed traffic containing both autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles is inevitable. Therefore, this study analysed the behaviour of non-autonomous vehicles at the inflow and outflow of highways to understand platoon operation management in mixed traffic conditions by using driving simulator and NASA-TLX survey. Unlike previous studies, this study considered an environment in which freight vehicle platoons occupy a designated lane and examined the vehicle driving characteristics and driver psychology as non-autonomous vehicles entered and exited the highway. Statistical methods such as ANOVA and MANOVA were used to analyse the difference according to the situation. As a result, in entry, platoon had an effect to driver and especially platoon size had a larger effect than inter-platoon spacing. However, among drivers with driving experience above a certain level, the platooning parameters did not have significant effects on the driving. The results of this study provide basic information about the operation and management of a platoon of autonomous vehicles on mixed-traffic highways.