Reduced Safety Distance during Cooperative Truck Overtaking

In this paper we investigate how trucks can overtake on freeways more safely and traffic-efficiently. For this purpose, we use platooning technology to exchange data regarding braking maneuvers via V2X and to react to them automatically. Our newly presented method is based on reducing the safety distance before and after overtaking to the minimum necessary distance i.e. so small that no collision occurs even in the worst case of an emergency braking. To achieve this, we first devote ourselves to the exact calculations of reaction and braking distances depending on important parameters such as velocity and weight. We then combine these in our model for the calculations of the safety distances and as a result we deliver the necessary relative speeds and improvements through cooperative overtaking maneuvers.