Citation

Aramrattana M, Larsson T, Englund C, Jansson J, Nåbo A. IEEE Trans. Intel. Transp. Syst. 2022; 23(4): 3790-3796.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers))

DOI

10.1109/TITS.2020.3040085

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Platooning refers to a group of vehicles that--enabled by wireless vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication and vehicle automation--drives with short inter-vehicular distances. Before its deployment on public roads, several challenging traffic situations need to be handled. Among the challenges are cut-in situations, where a conventional vehicle--a vehicle that has no automation or V2V communication--changes lane and ends up between vehicles in a platoon. This paper presents results from a simulation study of a scenario, where a conventional vehicle, approaching from an on-ramp, merges into a platoon of five cars on a highway. We created the scenario with four platooning gaps: 15, 22.5, 30, and 42.5 meters. During the study, the conventional vehicle was driven by 37 test persons, who experienced all the platooning gaps using a driving simulator. The participants' opinions towards safety, comfort, and ease of driving between the platoon in each gap setting were also collected through a questionnaire. The results suggest that a 15-meter gap prevents most participants from cutting in, while causing potentially dangerous maneuvers and collisions when cut-in occurs. A platooning gap of at least 30 meters yield positive opinions from the participants, and facilitating more smooth cut-in maneuvers while less collisions were observed.

Language: en

Keywords

Automobiles; cooperative adaptive cruise control; cut-in; Driving simulator; highway platooning; Merging; Meters; Roads; Safety; Vehicles; Vehicular ad hoc networks