Economic assessment of innovations - Application of the Value Oriented Cost-Effectiveness Estimation on electronically coupled trucks

One opportunity to manage the increase of freight transportation and to optimize utilization of motorway capacities is the concept of truck platoons. With the aid of advanced driver assistance systems, trucks are electronically coupled keeping very short gaps (approx. 10 meters) to form truck platoons on motorways. This contributes to a couple of advantages, such as a reduction of the inter-vehicle distance, which leads to an improved vehicle occupancy and gained road space, an optimization of traffic flow, the reduction of fuel consumption advantaged by slipstream driving, a relief for professional drivers and finally an increase in safety due to the longitudinal and lateral guidance. In this paper, a brief introduction into these truck platoons is given, which have been realized within the project KONVOI. The paper focuses on the method of the Value Oriented Cost-Effectiveness Estimation. This method had been developed by the Institute for Management Cybernetics (IfU) at RWTH Aachen University and combines the classical analysis of investment in monetary terms with relevant non-monetary variable or the so-called soft factors in the profitability analysis. The approach of the Value Oriented Cost-Effectiveness Estimation will be presented in this paper. Finally the method of the Value Oriented Cost-Effectiveness Estimation will be applied in excerpts on electronically coupled trucks on German motorways.