Advanced Truck Platooning

              Hello everyone, This is Sathya M from Amrita School of Business pursuing my second year MBA in Operations.

                While traveling on highways we could have seen trucks traveling one by one in a row and passed by wondering why there are wasting their time by traveling back to back instead of moving ahead. At first glance, we all look at it as a strange one.

                Truck Platooning refers to a structure in which two or more trucks move in a convoy on highways that are connected with each other. It is an old technic that is freshened up with a lot of improvements. Nowadays numerous technical features like an automated vehicle support system, Geopositioning, lane departure warning system, and connectivity technologies had been added to that. Even though there are some challenges, the benefits returned are higher. Due to the important role, it can play in fleet management many companies are looking for its implementation in the future.

 

How it works?

                 The truck that moves in front is responsible for the speed of the entire structure of the convoy. It directs and leads the ways throughout the journey. Vehicle control systems in each truck take care of the distance between each of them and maintain the speed as same as the one in front of it. There will a certain distance limit that they will not shorten. The control is also given to the drivers of each vehicle to leave and act independently as they reach each of their allocated destination points on their way.

 

Benefits:

Safety:

A major problem in traditional logistics is the safety and concentration of truck drivers. Vehicle control system identifies the obstacle and applies brake Immediately. The same information is passed to the following trucks in an instance taking only one fifth of the time a normal human would take after visualizing the situation to react.

Efficiency:

 It reduces the congestion in traffic and the delays following it. It makes use of the roadway more effectively and goods delivery will take lesser time than before. Also, it can help in reducing the CO2 emission from the trucks.

 

Reduced fuel consumption:

                Fuel cost holds the major share of costs in logistics. Since platooning help in reducing fuel consumption, it can save a huge sum of cost.

 

Challenges:

Difference in truck Load:

                The amount of load in the truck and the engine power and features of the truck will affect one another. Truck with high power may have to go at a pace higher than other but the low powered trucks cannot keep up with that. If more trucks a low powered and move slower, then the higher-powered truck cannot run fuel efficiently.

                Also the braking and acceleration may not be synched perfectly if the following has high load in the truck.

 

Climatic condition:

                During rainy and winter season the braking may not be matched and hard breaking will have even more effects.