Impacts of cooperative adaptive cruise control platoons on emissions under traffic oscillation

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC) vehicles have capability to improve traffic flow stability and reduce emissions and fuel consumption. However, previous studies did not investigate the relevance between these two aspects. To address this issue, we calculated stability conditions of traffic flow using car-following models. Simulations are also performed to evaluate reductions of emissions and fuel consumption under traffic oscillations. We also compared results of stability and emissions for exploring intrinsic relevance between them. Results show that stability could qualitatively influence reductions of emissions and fuel consumption, which provides potential method to reduce emissions and fuel consumption.