Vehicle Platooning Impact on Drag Coefficients and Energy/Fuel Saving Implications

In this paper, empirical data obtained from the literature were used to develop models that capture impact of vehicle position in a platoon homogeneous vehicles and distance gap its lead (and following) on drag coefficient. These are developed for light duty (LDVs), buses, heavy trucks (HDTs). The fit using constrained optimization formulation then extrapolate measurements wide range gaps. results show significant reduction fuel consumption when compared with those based constant coefficient assumption. Specifically, considering minimum time between 0.5 seconds running at speed $100 \; km/hr$ , is achieved notation="LaTeX">$5 \%$ notation="LaTeX">$17 notation="LaTeX">$12 LDV, bus, HDT platoons, respectively. For longer gaps (gap notation="LaTeX">$\approx 2$ seconds), bus platoons still experience reductions order notation="LaTeX">$8 whereas LDVs incur negligible savings.