Optimisation and Simulation of Truck Platoon Formation Method Considering Inter‐Vehicle Collision Effects

ABSTRACT Truck platooning can reduce energy consumption and improve traffic efficiency. However, under emergency braking or other unexpected situations, the shortened inter‐vehicle distances increase the risk of multi‐vehicle chain collisions, which may result in severe damage. This study focuses on truck platoons with heterogeneous masses and aims to minimise overall collision severity by optimising platoon formation through a combination of chain collision dynamics modelling and simulation experiments. At the theoretical level, we develop a chain collision dynamics model for the reaction‐sustained braking stage and formulate the platoon formation problem as a mixed‐integer nonlinear programming model. At the simulation level, we conduct experiments under reaction‐time delay and overspeed scenarios, and statistical analyses of the optimal platoon configurations reveal a bell‐shaped configuration, with heavier trucks in the middle and lighter ones at both ends, which mitigates chain collision severity. Finally, we conducted comparative experiments across different scenarios and platoon sizes, comparing the bell‐shaped configuration with the ascending mass configuration, descending mass configuration, and random mass configuration. The results show that the bell‐shaped formation reduces energy dissipation by approximately 18%–20% in the reaction‐delay scenario and by 7%–20% in the overspeed scenario. Overall, the bell‐shaped configuration demonstrates broad applicability and strong robustness in mitigating chain collision severity.