Truck-Platoonable Pavement Sections in Illinois’ Network

Abstract

Truck platooning has many benefits over traditional truck mobility. Literature shows that platooning improves safety and reduces fuel consumption between 5% and 15% based on platoon configuration. In Illinois, trucks carry more than 50% of freight tonnage and constitute 25% of the traffic on interstates. Deployment of truck platooning within interstate highways would result in significant fuel savings, but may have a direct impact on flexible pavement performance. The channelization of the platoon and reduced rest time between consecutive loads would accelerate the damage accumulation at the channelized position. Ultimately, this would lead to pavement service life reduction and a subsequent increase in maintenance and rehabilitation costs. Therefore, the main objective of this project is to quantify the effects of platooning on flexible pavements and provide guidelines for the state of Illinois by considering the aforementioned factors. Although the benefits of platooning are quantifiable, not every truck route is platoonable. For efficient platooning, trucks need to travel at a constant high speed for extended distances. The integrity of the platoon should be preserved because interfering vehicles would compromise the platooning benefits and road safety. An introduced high-level approach considers the volume/capacity of a roadway and the expected number of highway exit and entry conflicts. Using these parameters, each roadway section is assigned a level of platoonability, ranging from one to five—with five being the highest. A framework was developed to analyze the Illinois highway network. It was found that 89% of the network highway is platoonable under average capacity conditions.