Experimental features of emissions and fuel consumption in a car-following platoon

Abstract: The paper investigates the features of emissions and fuel consumption (EFC) in a car-following (CF) platoon based on two experimental datasets. Four classical EFC models are employed and a universal concave growth pattern of the EFC along a platoon has been demonstrated. A general framework of coupling EFC and CF models is tested by calibrating and simulating three classical CF models. This work first demonstrates that, at vehicle-pair level, all models perform well on EFC prediction. The intelligent driver model outperforms the other CF models on calibration accuracy, but this is not true on EFC prediction. Second, at platoon level, the predicted EFC is nearly constant along the platoon which qualitatively differs from the experimental observation. The investigation highlights that accurate estimations at vehicle level may be insufficient for analysis at platoon level due to the significant role of oscillation growth and evolution in EFC estimation.