Platooning for less CO2 emissions and improved traffic safety

Multi-brand truck platooning will become a reality in Europe thanks to the EU-funded ENSEMBLE initiative. Volvo Group is one of six truck manufactures that will bring in their technological position on platooning.
Truck platooning on European roads

The ENSEMBLE consortium will implement and demonstrate multi-brand truck platooning on European roads over the next 3 years together with six truck manufacturers, Volvo, DAF, Daimler, Iveco, MAN and Scania. This paves the way for the adoption of multi-brand truck platooning in Europe that will improve fuel economy, CO2 emissions, traffic safety and efficiency throughout the road freight sector.

The main aim of the ENSEMBLE project is to ensure safe platooning when using different branded  trucks  and carry out impact assessment for infrastructure, safety and traffic flow. Traffic and road authorities will be approached to jointly define road approval requirements. Platoon Operation Levels will be defined to guide the design of different platooning functionalities and strategies, reflecting the full diversity of trucks with platooning functionality.

Through real-world testing across national borders the impact on traffic, infrastructure and logistics will be assessed, whilst gathering relevant data of safety-relevant scenarios and necessitating harmonisation of approval requirements.

With the possibility of multi-brand platooning available for trucks driving on European roads, a single truck can form a platoon with any other truck. This could result in fuel savings for a large group of vehicles on today’s roads. Moreover, it will influence traffic flow, especially on highly congested corridors. Platoons will appear in normal traffic, causing smoother traffic and higher vehicle density and thus improving road throughput. Thanks to automated dynamic control between the trucks, truck operations are safer and less stressful. At highway entries, exits and junctions platoons will automatically increase vehicle gaps to give way to other road users.

The project will start half way through 2018. The final ENSEMBLE multi-brand truck platooning demonstration is planned on public roads in 2021.

Read more about our participation in other research projects with platooning.

European Truck Platooning Challenge and Sweden4Platooining