Platooning for sustainable freight transportation: an adoptable practice in the near future?

ABSTRACT

Platooning is an emerging transportation practice that has the potential to solve the problems of the burgeoning transportation industry. A platoon is a group of vehicles, with vehicle to vehicle communication, that travel closely behind one another such that the platoon can accelerate, brake and cruise together. Platoons can improve road safety, be energy efficient and reduce costs. Its complete socio-economic benefits include congestion mitigation, smoother traffic flow, better lane usage and throughput, incentives for green logistics and driver safety. The long-term effect of platooning on road transportation, if extensively deployed, would be better organised traffic flow and efficient tracking of vehicles on the road ushering a multilevel positive impact on the industry. In this study, we attempt to answer the critical question of whether platooning is an adoptable practice in the near future and discuss an agenda to take platooning closer to implementation on the ground by highlighting the opportunities for future research. We also present a conceptual framework to help researchers, academicians, policy makers and practitioners for the adoption of platooning into the transportation industry.