Fuel-saving potentials of platooning evaluated through sparse heavy-duty vehicle position data

Vehicle platooning is important for heavy-duty vehicle manufacturers, due to the reduced aerodynamic drag for the follower vehicles, which gives an overall lower fuel consumption. Heavy-duty vehicle drivers are aware this fact and sometimes drive close to other heavy-duty vehicles. However, it is not currently well known how many vehicles are actually driving in such spontaneous platoons today. This paper studies the platooning rate of 1,800 heavy-duty vehicles by analyzing sparse vehicle position data from a region in Europe during one day. Map-matching and path-inference algorithms are used to determine which paths the vehicles took. The spontaneous platooning rate is found to be 1.2 %, which corresponds to a total fuel saving of 0.07% compared to if none of the vehicles were platooning. Furthermore, we introduce several virtual coordination schemes. We show that coordinations can increase the platooning rate and fuel saving with a factor of ten with minor adjustments from the current travel schedule. The platooning rate and fuel savings can be significantly greater if higher flexibility is allowed.