Abstract
There are many obstacles to fight in order to exploit heavy-duty vehicle platooning on public roads. The main problem is given by the absence of EU legislation on this topic. In fact, the manual operation of heavy-duty vehicles at the small inter vehicle distances proposed by platooning is generally not allowed in the European Union member states and regulations covering such close collaborative automatic control driving are currently lacking. Moreover, relevant regulations differ worldwide, but also among the EU member states. An extensive analysis has been performed on the current state of EU and local rules regarding automated driving, driving time regulations, traffic regulations and aspects of safety. This analysis has been based in the COMPANION project results, and has been divided in three different subjects: vehicles as individual elements regarding the semiautonomous driving, the use of vehicles and platoons as a system and the use of the infrastructures.