Effects of Truck Platooning on Bituminous Road Pavement of High-level Roads

Truck platooning is seen by many as one of the first commercial automated driving use cases to be deployed at least at a low automation level (SAE-Level 1-2). Benefits like fuel consumption reduction, efficiency improvements and safety increases are promising. However also concerns from NRAs are to be taken serious whether or not exact lateral track following will lead to increased pavement rutting. As research on the correlation of lateral track offset, air drag benefits and pavement rutting for the platooning use case is limited, this study sets out to analyse the counter effects. Cooperative forms of connected truck platooning somehow hold the promise of effective cooperation between platoons and infrastructure operators allowing for demand driven traffic management. Following this, the actual expected effects on pavement rutting and the lifecycle are assessed to provide NRAs with new data sets for adequately adapting their strategies for traffic management and pavement management.