The effect of gross vehicle weight on platoon speed and size characteristics on two-lane road

摘要

This paper presents the results of a study that attempts to empirically exploreudthe influence of Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW) of the platoon leaderudonplatoon size and platoon speed characteristics on two-lane road. The aimudof this study is to observe how the platoon leaders' vehi cle dynamicsudcapability affects the platoon size and platoon speed variation. A Weigh-in-udMotion (WIM) based. traffic data collection system was installed in a twowayudrural road section to capture a set of platoon-based traffic data for audmonth, 24-hours a day. From a total of 173,778 vehicles passing the roadudsection, 17,820 platoon data were detected and utilized in an analysis process,udCollected data 'was grouped as according to their platoon leader weight, andudthen analyzed by two-way ANOV A to evaluate its relationship to platoonudspeed and size. Empirical analysis results show that there is a significantudrelationship between GVW of platoon leader and both platoon speed andudplatoon size. The findings suggest that platoon speed decreases and speedudvariation increases alongside the increasing of GVW of platoon leader.udHowever; it is proven that the average size of platoons led by heavy vehiclesudis smaller than platoons led by passenger cars. The formation of platoonudinvolving heavy vehicles indeed has a large impact on driving behavior ofudeither psychological or physical action, Thus, in order to reduce the risk ofuddangerous overtaking manoeuvre, there is a high necessity for traffic flow ofuddifferent opposing directions to be separated and an extra lane shall beuddesigned for particularly overtaking activities at accident prone areas.