Abstract
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions has turned into a pillar of climate change mitigation. Truck platooning is proposed as a strategy to lower emissions from vehicles on roads. However, the potential interactive impacts of this technology on road infrastructure emissions remain unclear. Here, we evaluate the decarbonization effects of truck platooning on the integrated vehicle-road system at a large-scale road network level, spanning 1457 road sections across North America. We show that truck platooning decreases emissions induced by truck operations, but it degrades faster the durability of road infrastructure and leads to a 27.9% rise in road emissions due to more frequent maintenance work. Overall, truck platooning results in a 5.1% emission reduction of the integrated vehicle-road system. In contrast to the benefits of emission reduction, truck platooning leads to additional financial burdens on car users and transportation agencies, calling for the consideration of tradeoffs between emissions and costs and between agencies and users. Our research provides insights into the potential applications of truck platooning to mitigate climate change.
Recommended Citation
H. Cheng et al., "Truck Platooning Reshapes Greenhouse Gas Emissions Of The Integrated Vehicle-road Infrastructure System," Nature Communications, vol. 14, no. 1, article no. 4495, Nature Research, Dec 2023.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40116-0
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Publication Status
Open Access
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
2041-1723
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Final Version
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2023 The Authors, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Publication Date
01 Dec 2023
PubMed ID
37582916
Comments
National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant 15208518