clickclickdrone writes to mention that "road trains," a system linking vehicles together via wireless sensors, could soon be rolled out in Europe. The system is designed primarily for cutting fuel consumption, travel time, and congestion. "Funded under the European Commission's Framework 7 research plan, Sartre (Safe Road Trains for the Environment) is aimed at commuters in cars who travel long distances to work every day but will also look at ways to involve commercial vehicles. Tom Robinson, project co-ordinator at engineering firm Ricardo, said the idea was to use off-the-shelf components to make it possible for cars, buses and trucks to join the road train."
Well considering the internet evolved from a government project I'd say there isn't going to be any heads exploding over this. Especially if it has military applications which it probably does. Reducing fuel expenditure is a tactical advantage and the vast majority of free market types still support the idea of the government fulfilling the role of national defense to some degree.
... the vast majority of free market types still support the idea of the government fulfilling the role of national defense to some degree.
No, they just don't think about it. That would interfere with the "all government is evil" mantra that has been drilled into their heads by corporate media interests.
Well considering the internet evolved from a government project I'd say there isn't going to be any heads exploding over this. Especially if it has military applications which it probably does. Reducing fuel expenditure is a tactical advantage and the vast majority of free market types still support the idea of the government fulfilling the role of national defense to some degree.
I doubt the military would use this, at least not overseas. Decreased fuel consumption isn't worth turning a bunch of small targets into one large target. An IED or RPG would go from hitting 1-2 Humvees to 3-6.
The national security benefit from reducing our domestic oil consumption by even 1% is pretty significant, though.
The US Army is already looking into something similar to this but not with the high-speed tailgating effect. They're using one lead driver to lead a group of radio-linked trucks so they can get several times the supplies moved with less exposure of personnel to hostile forces.
I only did a quick search so here's what I came up with: http://www.controleng.com/blog/AIMing_for_Automated_Vehicles/14540-Robot_Convoy_Truck.php [controleng.com]
It sucks that this system even needs a professional driver to begin with. A better system would be fully peer-to-peer in that any two cars that happened to be traveling in the same direction could link up.
Of course that would break this company's buisness model, but it would make sense for the car manufacturers to implement it that way.
You don't check a railway train driver's safety record. Or a bus drivers or a taxi drivers. Yet you are putting your life in the their hands on the basis that you trust they are qualified from the job, haven't been sacked for being incompetent, and have some trust in whatever safety systems are in place. This is no different.
You're handing control over to another driver, who may very well decide not to brake and cause a five car pileup, or worse. Also, there's no way to know the mechanical status of the vehicle -- what if one of them blows a tire, or runs out of gas, or the engine seizes?
What you should do is create a dedicated lane that is controlled entirely by computer, and you program your exit/entry point at that time, and let the signal and control computers handle traffic management. If an unauthorized vehicle enters the lane, sensors will immediately detect it, alert nearby drivers (and disengage), and send the police to go catch captain speedy pants and send him to a pants-down facility. Computers also do a much better job of fuel consumption and control... I mean, it'd basically be a packet-switched network, but with cars instead of pieces of data. It's a relatively benign IT problem.
As well, vehicle breakdowns would be handled a lot better because the system would be tied directly to the onboard computer and navigation systems: Just like lorries/semi-trucks operating on the road today. Having spoken to a commercial truck driver, I can tell you that the computer often knows about mechanical problems before the driver does, and their systems are pre-programmed to alert a dispatcher, who will send a rescue/repair vehicle out in situ.
I've seen at least half-a-dozen deer on the roads in the last couple of weeks. How is this going to work when one decides to run right through the middle of the train?
Well, I imagine what would happen is that the driver about to hit the deer would brake hard. The computer would relay this braking information to the following vehicles so they would all brake at very nearly the same instant. The problem that arises is that different vehicles have different braking capabilities, so if the vehicle about to hit the deer can brake harder than one of the vehicles coming behind, then we'd end up with a collision, maybe even a chain of collisions.
Ideally, the vehicles in front should have their braking artificially limited so that it doesn't exceed the braking ability of any following vehicle. If that were done, then the computers could ensure that collisions in the train don't happen.
"What if the "lead driver" rides the brakes, thus smoking my brakes/warping my disks?"
You do know that the default state of most cars is 'slowing down', right?
"What if something falls off / out of a car ahead of me (a more common occurrence than you'd think), can I quickly escape the train, and who is liable when by design I can not?"
Yes. The same person that would have been liable if the exact same thing happened today. And that's a stupid question, isn't it? Do you really think it will be designed as a de
The scene: A road that was winding its way along a treacherous landscape (think Wile E. Coyote's home turf).
A generic couple were standing by the side of road, which was basically a piece of flat pavement cut into the side of a mountain. They were watching a garage inventor/scientist type explain his latest invention, a motorized luggage carrier. Sort of a motorcycle sidecar or luggage unit for people who didn't want to change the visual impact of their motorbike. It was an independent unit, had its own motor and fuel, and required only a slight modification to the motorcycle in the form of a radio transmitter. After that, it basically mimicked the motions of the "master" motorcycle.
Garage inventor gets on his bike, fires it up, and drives off. Sure enough, the other device (which I recall looking a lot like a large cooler on wheels) fired up by itself and followed. A few minutes later, the garage inventor loops back and drives by. Getting cocky, he waves at the couple. Unfortunately, he hits a rock and with only one hand on the handlebars, can't recover. He loses control, and drives off the side of the cliff. An unpleasant "crunch" is heard below.
Moments later, the motorized luggage holder comes along and dutifully throws itself off the cliff as well. A second "crunch" is heard.
The couple look down at the carnage and then leave.
OK - imagine this scenario: a train is driving along, and something happens to car number 2/8. Hit by another car, flat tire, accidentally leans on the joystick [slashdot.org], whatever. The car veers out of control, unlinking cars 3-8. So now you have six cars being manned by people who were sleeping/reading/eating/daydreaming 10 nanoseconds ago.
I'm just sayin, I don't think you could pay me enough to get in one of those trains. Mythbusters did an interesting piece on saving gas by drafting. You could save a great deal of gas, but at great expense to safety.
OK - imagine this scenario: a large number of very intelligent specialists work for years on this idea and the necessary tech is implemented in every European car and noone ever thought of the 100% obvious first-problem-any-person-would-come-up-with-when-introduced-to-this-idea problem smitty777 discovered with the vast power of his uber-brain. European roads then become deathtraps, depopulating the continent like it's 1349.
I'm just sayin, every/. article with new ideas gets swamped by people stating absolutely obvious problems as if the people working on that project were all functionally retarded. I said the same thing just a few days ago but this article really brought the geniuses out of the woodwork like I haven't seen in some time.
How would they expect this system to work at highway Merges ? Another fun thing is inclement weather and curves on the highway. My car can take curves at a much higher speed than a panel truck during high winds.
I can see where this would be useful on long straight highways, but otherwise very dangerous. Each car would also need a "safe return to park" capability which would cause the cars to park themselves to the side of the road if the central control was lost, and the driver did not respond within a few seconds.
Include a gps unit that would alert people that their turn is coming up, and have the professional driver thing only be for testing , and add that capability to general car system.
Well, if you take a train then need a car at your destination, you need to rent one or spend money on cab fare. If you have too much stuff to take in the train (e.g. moving house a long distance), a train is not an option whatsoever. There are also places with existing roads where building new heavy rail would be impossible or impractical or incredibly expensive.
Its been done. On some smaller roads connecting towns in Austria, I've seen them prohibit truck traffic. In each town, they drive the trucks onto railroad flatcars and haul them between towns.
Naw, killing the young is both a better deterrent to overpopulation, and easier because the ignorant good-for-nothing whippersnappers won't even see it coming.
Exactly, this is a quick and dirty optimization for commuters. By just linking up on the fly and on the highway that's already being driven, any properly equipped cars can hop in instantly and follow the route they normally take. Loading onto an actual train takes time on both ends and requires the drivers to board/depart only at train stations, making it more effective for long distance (3-8+ hours). It also allows this to go all along the freeway you travel, rather than just along the rail lines, meaning more people would use a system tied to just the highway.
Of course, I can guarantee this system would limit travel speed to the legal speed limit, so this wouldn't catch on with the majority of commuters. Most cities, if traffic isn't moving 15mph, it's going 15mph faster than the speed limit.
Designate the leftmost lane the "train lane." Hit a button on your dash, and it signals the train to make an opening for you, hand off driving control to the "conductor" and you get to cruise at 15mph above the posted speed limit--legally. When you approach your exit, it signals you to leave the train, and you resume manual control to get the rest of the way to your destination.
(they forget to mention the *EXTRA* fuel expense for the leading vehicle that is basically towing the others..)
This is not always the case. In some cases, the reduction of the drag from turbulence off the rear means that the leading vehicle also gets a benefit, though not as much as the following ones. This is true in stock car racing and in skating; I don't know about cycling.
Actually, lead vehicles benefit from this, too, just not nearly as much.
Even though vehicle aerodynamics have tried to combat it, there is a big negative pressure bubble forming your car's wake 'pulling' it backwards. Partially filling it with another vehicle's high pressure region where it 'cuts' the oncoming air helps.
Actually, the vehicle in front also benefits from the drafting. Not to the same degree as the trailing vehicles, but it gets a significant benefit none the less. See http://www.livescience.com/technology/070215_nascar_aero.html [livescience.com] for details.
(they forget to mention the *EXTRA* fuel expense for the leading vehicle that is basically towing the others..)
Oh look, someone who doesn't know what he's talking about by tries to sound like he does just got modded up. "Trailing cars fill in the lead car's low-pressure wake, thereby cutting down pressure drag."
Truckers in general are pretty congenial amongst themselves on the road. It only takes a few minutes on listening to the CB radio to know they got each others backs.
Nope. Not true. The leading vehicle experiences no extra drag at all, thing is it -is- to some extent towing the vehicles behind it, but if it wasn't it would instead be towing the -air- along, to the same degree. (that air being dragged along is, afterall, the source of the saved fuel for the cars behind.
5 cars driving close together really do use less fuel in sum, compared to 5 individual cars. It's -not- just a question of redistributing the consumption, there's real savings.
They are certainly drafting. It's just that flying things disturb the air in a quite different pattern from ground vehicles. Staying right behind someone flying means being in the down-draft which is keeping the leader up, which means you have to work harder to keep yourself up. To the side you can catch a bit of up-draft from their wing vortices, in addition to less wind resistance.
Sounds a lot like this idea: Train-of-cars [halfbakery.com] that was posted more than 4 years ago. Note that means certain elements are therefore in the Public Domain and cannot be patented.
except at 55-75 mph there's that much less room to react when the tire of the car in front of you blows out...
Unless you're building in sensors that can check for each and every possible change to the front vehicles ability to maintain speed and safety.
An automated roadway seems a better bet than semi-autonomous 'trains' on an uncontrolled road. The 'trains' would by their definition need to interact in real-time with humans driving cars the old fashioned way. Trying to get a computer to react pro
They do say that the lead car of the train would be driven by professional drivers. of course that won't really help if a car in the middle of the train does something unexpected.
except at 55-75 mph there's that much less room to react when the tire of the car in front of you blows out...
Yes, if that happens you hit them! But, you don't hit them very hard because they haven't had time to decelerate very much and your autopilot slammed on the brakes the millisecond they started to slow.
In the worst case, if the lead car suddenly loses a tire or something, the whole train probably collides, rather gently and then comes to a stop as a mass. Might scratch some paintwork, but unlikely to kill, or even hurt, anybody.
On a totally automated road system you would have trains like this separated by g
Except that with this system, they don't need to be jammed. If everybody in the train presses the accelerator at once, knowing that the car in front of them will as well, everybody gets to move. You're not as limited by the following distance required by an unpredictable human driver and the unpredictable circumstances ahead.
Reducing inter-car distance reduces the amount of road you need because you put more cars on the same amount of pavement, and the same highway functions as a much larger road. But it only works if you get the humans out of the loop.
Of course it also provides opportunities for truly spectacular failures.
"aimed at commuters in cars who travel long distances to work every day"
I have a better idea. Hook those road trains up to their houses, and move the houses closer to work. That will save a LOT of fuel, not to mention wear and tear on the infrastructure.
The fundamental problem with most automated driving schemes is that they address driving on freeways, which people don't mind all that much.
Speak for yourself. I make a 5 hour drive once a month to see family and assuming a minumum level of safety, I would pay at least $5k for a system that kept the current lane, kept the current speed, and automatically slowed down to avoid accidents. Sure my drive would take just as long, probably even longer since it wouldn't go around slow vehicles in the fast lane, but that would be hours out of my life that I could spend doing any of a dozen different things.
What hath the free market wrought? (Score:4, Interesting)
If this catches on in America some gear heads are going to explode.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well considering the internet evolved from a government project I'd say there isn't going to be any heads exploding over this. Especially if it has military applications which it probably does. Reducing fuel expenditure is a tactical advantage and the vast majority of free market types still support the idea of the government fulfilling the role of national defense to some degree.
Re:What hath the free market wrought? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
... the vast majority of free market types still support the idea of the government fulfilling the role of national defense to some degree.
No, they just don't think about it. That would interfere with the "all government is evil" mantra that has been drilled into their heads by corporate media interests.
Re:What hath the free market wrought? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well considering the internet evolved from a government project I'd say there isn't going to be any heads exploding over this. Especially if it has military applications which it probably does. Reducing fuel expenditure is a tactical advantage and the vast majority of free market types still support the idea of the government fulfilling the role of national defense to some degree.
I doubt the military would use this, at least not overseas. Decreased fuel consumption isn't worth turning a bunch of small targets into one large target. An IED or RPG would go from hitting 1-2 Humvees to 3-6.
The national security benefit from reducing our domestic oil consumption by even 1% is pretty significant, though.
The US Army is already looking into something similar to this but not with the high-speed tailgating effect. They're using one lead driver to lead a group of radio-linked trucks so they can get several times the supplies moved with less exposure of personnel to hostile forces. I only did a quick search so here's what I came up with: http://www.controleng.com/blog/AIMing_for_Automated_Vehicles/14540-Robot_Convoy_Truck.php [controleng.com]
Parent
I just hope... (Score:3, Interesting)
That you can check the professional driver's safety record before joining the train.
Re:I just hope... (Score:4, Interesting)
It sucks that this system even needs a professional driver to begin with. A better system would be fully peer-to-peer in that any two cars that happened to be traveling in the same direction could link up.
Of course that would break this company's buisness model, but it would make sense for the car manufacturers to implement it that way.
Parent
Re:I just hope... (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't check a railway train driver's safety record. Or a bus drivers or a taxi drivers. Yet you are putting your life in the their hands on the basis that you trust they are qualified from the job, haven't been sacked for being incompetent, and have some trust in whatever safety systems are in place. This is no different.
Parent
Funny coincidence (Score:5, Funny)
The plan is called "Sartre". My first reaction: What if there's No Exit?
Re:Funny coincidence (Score:4, Insightful)
Hell, apparently, is other drivers.
Parent
Re:Funny coincidence (Score:4, Funny)
Any resident of Chicago or Boston would agree with that, I'm sure.
Parent
Tailgating to the max (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
road trains are stupid. (Score:4, Interesting)
You're handing control over to another driver, who may very well decide not to brake and cause a five car pileup, or worse. Also, there's no way to know the mechanical status of the vehicle -- what if one of them blows a tire, or runs out of gas, or the engine seizes?
What you should do is create a dedicated lane that is controlled entirely by computer, and you program your exit/entry point at that time, and let the signal and control computers handle traffic management. If an unauthorized vehicle enters the lane, sensors will immediately detect it, alert nearby drivers (and disengage), and send the police to go catch captain speedy pants and send him to a pants-down facility. Computers also do a much better job of fuel consumption and control... I mean, it'd basically be a packet-switched network, but with cars instead of pieces of data. It's a relatively benign IT problem.
As well, vehicle breakdowns would be handled a lot better because the system would be tied directly to the onboard computer and navigation systems: Just like lorries/semi-trucks operating on the road today. Having spoken to a commercial truck driver, I can tell you that the computer often knows about mechanical problems before the driver does, and their systems are pre-programmed to alert a dispatcher, who will send a rescue/repair vehicle out in situ.
Re:road trains are stupid. (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, it'd basically be a packet-switched network, but with cars instead of pieces of data.
Hey! Here on /. we use car analogies to explain computer technology - not vice-versa!!
Parent
Re:road trains are stupid. (Score:4, Interesting)
I've seen at least half-a-dozen deer on the roads in the last couple of weeks. How is this going to work when one decides to run right through the middle of the train?
Well, I imagine what would happen is that the driver about to hit the deer would brake hard. The computer would relay this braking information to the following vehicles so they would all brake at very nearly the same instant. The problem that arises is that different vehicles have different braking capabilities, so if the vehicle about to hit the deer can brake harder than one of the vehicles coming behind, then we'd end up with a collision, maybe even a chain of collisions.
Ideally, the vehicles in front should have their braking artificially limited so that it doesn't exceed the braking ability of any following vehicle. If that were done, then the computers could ensure that collisions in the train don't happen.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"What if the "lead driver" rides the brakes, thus smoking my brakes/warping my disks?"
You do know that the default state of most cars is 'slowing down', right?
"What if something falls off / out of a car ahead of me (a more common occurrence than you'd think), can I quickly escape the train, and who is liable when by design I can not?"
Yes. The same person that would have been liable if the exact same thing happened today. And that's a stupid question, isn't it? Do you really think it will be designed as a de
Reminds me of a dream I once had (Score:5, Funny)
A generic couple were standing by the side of road, which was basically a piece of flat pavement cut into the side of a mountain. They were watching a garage inventor/scientist type explain his latest invention, a motorized luggage carrier. Sort of a motorcycle sidecar or luggage unit for people who didn't want to change the visual impact of their motorbike. It was an independent unit, had its own motor and fuel, and required only a slight modification to the motorcycle in the form of a radio transmitter. After that, it basically mimicked the motions of the "master" motorcycle.
Garage inventor gets on his bike, fires it up, and drives off. Sure enough, the other device (which I recall looking a lot like a large cooler on wheels) fired up by itself and followed. A few minutes later, the garage inventor loops back and drives by. Getting cocky, he waves at the couple. Unfortunately, he hits a rock and with only one hand on the handlebars, can't recover. He loses control, and drives off the side of the cliff. An unpleasant "crunch" is heard below.
Moments later, the motorized luggage holder comes along and dutifully throws itself off the cliff as well. A second "crunch" is heard.
The couple look down at the carnage and then leave.
I was driving ... (Score:4, Funny)
Train Wreck (Score:4, Interesting)
OK - imagine this scenario: a train is driving along, and something happens to car number 2/8. Hit by another car, flat tire, accidentally leans on the joystick [slashdot.org], whatever. The car veers out of control, unlinking cars 3-8. So now you have six cars being manned by people who were sleeping/reading/eating/daydreaming 10 nanoseconds ago.
I'm just sayin, I don't think you could pay me enough to get in one of those trains. Mythbusters did an interesting piece on saving gas by drafting. You could save a great deal of gas, but at great expense to safety.
Re:Train Wreck (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm just sayin, every /. article with new ideas gets swamped by people stating absolutely obvious problems as if the people working on that project were all functionally retarded. I said the same thing just a few days ago but this article really brought the geniuses out of the woodwork like I haven't seen in some time.
Parent
Theory versus implementation prediction (Score:3, Funny)
Theory: Sartre
Implementation: Kafka
Merging and Curves (Score:3, Insightful)
How would they expect this system to work at highway Merges ? Another fun thing is inclement weather and curves on the highway. My car can take curves at a much higher speed than a panel truck during high winds.
I can see where this would be useful on long straight highways, but otherwise very dangerous. Each car would also need a "safe return to park" capability which would
cause the cars to park themselves to the side of the road if the central control was lost, and the driver did not respond within a few seconds.
Include a gps unit that would alert people that their turn is coming up, and have the professional driver thing only be for testing , and add that capability to general car system.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, if you take a train then need a car at your destination, you need to rent one or spend money on cab fare. If you have too much stuff to take in the train (e.g. moving house a long distance), a train is not an option whatsoever. There are also places with existing roads where building new heavy rail would be impossible or impractical or incredibly expensive.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ummm (use actual trains) (Score:4, Funny)
Naw, killing the young is both a better deterrent to overpopulation, and easier because the ignorant good-for-nothing whippersnappers won't even see it coming.
Parent
Re:Ummm (use actual trains) (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly, this is a quick and dirty optimization for commuters. By just linking up on the fly and on the highway that's already being driven, any properly equipped cars can hop in instantly and follow the route they normally take. Loading onto an actual train takes time on both ends and requires the drivers to board/depart only at train stations, making it more effective for long distance (3-8+ hours). It also allows this to go all along the freeway you travel, rather than just along the rail lines, meaning more people would use a system tied to just the highway.
Of course, I can guarantee this system would limit travel speed to the legal speed limit, so this wouldn't catch on with the majority of commuters. Most cities, if traffic isn't moving 15mph, it's going 15mph faster than the speed limit.
Parent
Re:Ummm (use actual trains) (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds workable to me.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And the sprawl that already exists?
Well, the nuclear powers are talking about reducing their warhead stockpiles. Maybe we could solve two problems at once.
Re:Fuel economy ? (Score:4, Informative)
The lead vehicle is a purpose-built vehicle driven by a professional driver, not a 'passenger' of the train.
Parent
Re:Fuel economy ? (Score:5, Funny)
Ok.. Made a fool of myself..
There seem to be overwhelming evidence that I was utterly wrong.. Ah well..
Since I can't mod myself -1 stupid, I'll just flog myself 10 times !
--Ivan
Parent
Re:Fuel economy ? (Score:4, Funny)
Wait! What? Did someone on the internet admit they were wrong?
What the hell is going on???
Parent
Re:Fuel economy ? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not always the case. In some cases, the reduction of the drag from turbulence off the rear means that the leading vehicle also gets a benefit, though not as much as the following ones. This is true in stock car racing and in skating; I don't know about cycling.
Parent
Re:Fuel economy ? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Fuel economy ? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, lead vehicles benefit from this, too, just not nearly as much.
Even though vehicle aerodynamics have tried to combat it, there is a big negative pressure bubble forming your car's wake 'pulling' it backwards. Partially filling it with another vehicle's high pressure region where it 'cuts' the oncoming air helps.
Parent
Re:Fuel economy ? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the vehicle in front also benefits from the drafting. Not to the same degree as the trailing vehicles, but it gets a significant benefit none the less. See http://www.livescience.com/technology/070215_nascar_aero.html [livescience.com] for details.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
(they forget to mention the *EXTRA* fuel expense for the leading vehicle that is basically towing the others..)
Oh look, someone who doesn't know what he's talking about by tries to sound like he does just got modded up. "Trailing cars fill in the lead car's low-pressure wake, thereby cutting down pressure drag."
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sure they could... you know... take turns.
Truckers in general are pretty congenial amongst themselves on the road. It only takes a few minutes on listening to the CB radio to know they got each others backs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nope. Not true. The leading vehicle experiences no extra drag at all, thing is it -is- to some extent towing the vehicles behind it, but if it wasn't it would instead be towing the -air- along, to the same degree. (that air being dragged along is, afterall, the source of the saved fuel for the cars behind.
5 cars driving close together really do use less fuel in sum, compared to 5 individual cars. It's -not- just a question of redistributing the consumption, there's real savings.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
They are certainly drafting. It's just that flying things disturb the air in a quite different pattern from ground vehicles. Staying right behind someone flying means being in the down-draft which is keeping the leader up, which means you have to work harder to keep yourself up. To the side you can catch a bit of up-draft from their wing vortices, in addition to less wind resistance.
Re:Tailgating to the max (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless you're building in sensors that can check for each and every possible change to the front vehicles ability to maintain speed and safety.
An automated roadway seems a better bet than semi-autonomous 'trains' on an uncontrolled road. The 'trains' would by their definition need to interact in real-time with humans driving cars the old fashioned way. Trying to get a computer to react pro
Re:Tailgating to the max (Score:4, Informative)
They do say that the lead car of the train would be driven by professional drivers. of course that won't really help if a car in the middle of the train does something unexpected.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
except at 55-75 mph there's that much less room to react when the tire of the car in front of you blows out...
Yes, if that happens you hit them! But, you don't hit them very hard because they haven't had time to decelerate very much and your autopilot slammed on the brakes the millisecond they started to slow.
In the worst case, if the lead car suddenly loses a tire or something, the whole train probably collides, rather gently and then comes to a stop as a mass. Might scratch some paintwork, but unlikely to kill, or even hurt, anybody.
On a totally automated road system you would have trains like this separated by g
Re:Tailgating to the max (Score:5, Funny)
Here in Europe, we already use these trains during rush hour. They can reach lengths of many kilometers.
We call them traffic jams. And we don' need no stinkin' wireless link.
Parent
Re:Tailgating to the max (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that with this system, they don't need to be jammed. If everybody in the train presses the accelerator at once, knowing that the car in front of them will as well, everybody gets to move. You're not as limited by the following distance required by an unpredictable human driver and the unpredictable circumstances ahead.
Reducing inter-car distance reduces the amount of road you need because you put more cars on the same amount of pavement, and the same highway functions as a much larger road. But it only works if you get the humans out of the loop.
Of course it also provides opportunities for truly spectacular failures.
Parent
Re:Tailgating to the max (Score:4, Insightful)
"aimed at commuters in cars who travel long distances to work every day"
I have a better idea. Hook those road trains up to their houses, and move the houses closer to work. That will save a LOT of fuel, not to mention wear and tear on the infrastructure.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The fundamental problem with most automated driving schemes is that they address driving on freeways, which people don't mind all that much.
Speak for yourself. I make a 5 hour drive once a month to see family and assuming a minumum level of safety, I would pay at least $5k for a system that kept the current lane, kept the current speed, and automatically slowed down to avoid accidents. Sure my drive would take just as long, probably even longer since it wouldn't go around slow vehicles in the fast lane, but that would be hours out of my life that I could spend doing any of a dozen different things.