Impact of Truck Platooning on Texas Bridges
Date
2020-04-13Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
United States trucking industry has an annual revenue output of $725 billion and is expected to grow by over 40 percent by 2045. The biggest challenges faced by the industry is the ever-increasing oil prices and the shortage of drivers to meet the growing demands. Truck platooning provides an efficient solution for both the challenges, which can be incorporated by equipping the existing inventory with modern sensors and systems. Platooning of trucks is the process by which two or more trucks move together along highways, maintaining a constant close space between them also allowing for significant fuel savings.
The scope of this study is to research the potential impacts of truck platoons on the Texas bridge inventory. Bridges are one of the major elements of the highway infrastructure. Texas has the largest bridge inventory in the USA with over 55,000 bridges (more than 40 percentage older than 40 years). Due to the large inventory under consideration, a subset of bridges most likely support future truck platoons was selected (6,550 bridges). For each of these structures estimated truck platoon load ratings were calculated according to the original design methodology (allowable stress, load factor, or load and resistance factor) using NBI data elements along with assumptions from prior studies. The obtained load ratings from the older structures were then standardized to the load and resistance factor rating method. Then the bridges were prioritized considering the effects of the bridge condition. This identified the structures that require the earliest attention. In total, six different trucks at four different spacings under two- and three-truck platoons were analyzed as a part of the research. In addition, a cost benefit analysis is also performed with respect to truck platoons and bridges for better understanding of the benefits. Overall conclusions were drawn regarding the sensitivity of the original design methodology, bridge span length, truck type, truck spacing and number of trucks within a platoon on the bridge prioritization. In addition, a secondary benefit of the study is that a framework is presented for other bridge owners to prioritize their bridges that may be subjected to truck platoon or other heavy vehicle loading.
Citation
Pillay Thulaseedharan, Nandhu (2020). Impact of Truck Platooning on Texas Bridges. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /191819.