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"Road Trains" Ready To Roll
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."
This seems like a risky move, but it sure looks cool.
If this catches on in America some gear heads are going to explode.
Don't we have this already?
Railway trains perchance?
Prawns.
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
That you can check the professional driver's safety record before joining the train.
-mkb
Ah ah !
20% less fuel for the vehicles following the main vehicle..
(they forget to mention the *EXTRA* fuel expense for the leading vehicle that is basically towing the others..)
Basically, no one will ever want to be in front (look at cycle races.. it only works if people take turns at being the 1st in line..)
--Ivan
A better application of technology would be to cut the need for travel via telecomumting, telepresence, etc.
the big problem is that management doesn't have that much of a clue as to how to measure job performance and "manage people" w/o the presence of warm bodies, and when we come up with real metrics and methods, most managers would quickly become redundant.
The plan is called "Sartre". My first reaction: What if there's No Exit?
I am officially gone from
Talk about a massive pile ups when hackers get into the software controlling the platoons. Professional driver of the lead vehicle may also cause problems while texting, drinking coffee and reading a newspaper all at the same time. Also, defeats the purpose of having a car - driving on your own... If you want to be in this type of a setup, take a train.
This seems like it could be pretty bad if there was an accident.
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.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
If this thing is as reliable as my wireless router, there will be a lot of accidents
You can already get this tech if you splurge for an S-class Mercedes:
http://www.benzinsider.com/2008/06/distronic-plus-and-brake-assist-plus-reduce-rear-end-collisions-by-20/
It would be a cool DIY project, too. Don't tell your insurance company.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
FTA: Each road train could include up to eight separate vehicles. [...] The lead vehicle would be handled by a professional driver who would monitor the status of the road train.
This sounds like a major obstacle to me. One professional, presumably paid, driver to every eight vehicles sounds expensive and pretty impractical. What are they going to do, have you queue up somewhere waiting for one of these lead drivers to come along? I think that's taking the whole "train" analogy too far, one of the reasons I like driving is that I don't have to wait for a damn train. For this kind of thing to really work, I'd have thought the ideal would be not to have a lead driver at all, but to form ad-hoc trains. I.e. vehicles interrogate each other to find out if they're going on the same route, and automatically join the "train". I'd assume that cars with this sort of technology would be speed limited, at least while leading a train, so that shouldn't be an issue.
Mr Robinson speculated that those joining a platoon or road train may one day pay for the privilege of someone else effectively driving them closer to their destination.
And a further kicker. As far as I'm concerned, these road trains would be a very diminished driving experience. I expect to pay less in return for helping the environment and reducing road congestion, not more. Give me a reduction in my road tax or something in return for participating, and I might be interested.
Oh no... it's the future.
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.
Europe can't even standardise on a safety system for trains. Hell, they can't even standardise it in 1 single country. The "Betuwe Line" (A dutch project for a transport railway between Rotterdam Harbor and Germany) got delayed for years due to malfunctioning safety systems. And that's a problem with a very limited amount of parties and other variables involved. How will they ever be able to implement such system for cars. And, more, how will you garantuee the system will actually increase safety, not decrease it by some unexpected side effect.
The safest car on the road is one that is parked. Invest in teleworking and other ICT infrastructure, not more roads and fancy projects that will never get adopted.
I agree that this is a monstrosity that no one in their right mind would ever want to use.
But it does seem like a step in the right direction. Instead of carpool lanes which are a stupid waste of time, I'd like to see a major US city devote a lane of all their highways to something interesting like this, only more flexible and safer and automated and efficient and economically beneficial, obviously.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Maybe there should be car-carrying trains. Or stop building sprawl. Anyway, actual trains are far more efficient than this could ever be.
I believe the reason this will never catch has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with legal liability. Who is going to want to be the front car of the train, when they will obviously be responsible for any accidents? What company is going to want to supply this system and open themselves up to massive lawsuits whenever somebody finds a way to defeat the system and cause an accident?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I'm wondering if this is a workable step to an autopilot for cars? I would pay a lot to be able to hook up to a platoon and sleep a good portion of the trip. But it would seem like this might be workable as an interim step to an in-road sensor system.
The real trick would be making sure the driver was awake before releasing the car from the platoon. And what about the cars behind them? Also don't see how this prevents someone from cutting in between cars in the train.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Yeah, think of all the new 'convoy' sequels that we will have to listen to on the radio...
*shudder*
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
... on I-94 to Minneapolis, but I fell asleep and missed the exit by 150 miles.
Have gnu, will travel.
Maybe there should be car-carrying trains.
There already are. What makes you think there aren't?
Or stop building sprawl.
And the sprawl that already exists? Face it, its not going anywhere, so you'll have to deal with this issue. Trains aren't really going to work, unless perhaps they make them incrediblly fast.
Anyway, actual trains are far more efficient than this could ever be.
Since it's not even deployed, perhaps you should wait before passing judgement.
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, 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.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
"require"?
Medical - http://www.sri.com/esd/med_devel/robotic-systems.html. Since 2000 the FDA has cleared a system for telepresence surgery "for thoracoscopic (chest) surgery, for cardiac procedures performed with adjunctive incisions, and urologic and gynecologic procedures."
Education - this being slashdot, let's skip over U.C. and the many, similar others who offer long-distance learning options at the undergraduate level and go hard-core. http://sdm.mit.edu/distance.html. The SDM distance-learning option is a 24-month program—MIT’s first graduate-degree program offered primarily at a distance.
Now the distracted drivers can have their twitter/text/calls/lipstick/ etc and not get pulled over for it.
Reply to That ||
Theory: Sartre
Implementation: Kafka
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
On/off loading is too hard/slow and train stations (at least here in the UK are often in a terrible location for car traffic). In theory it's a great idea but in practice it costs too much to set-up for businesses to bother. It has been done in France (probably subsidized, but hey i'm a dirty socialist and think government spending money to reduce CO2 emission is needed) but the cars are moved on separate trains so it's no good for everyday travel.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
I see no benefit over real trains except that this will work with existing roads.
If the issue is that you want your personal space and you want to drive to/from the train, then the much simpler fix is to make trains that allow vehicle docking. This is actually a much more elegant solution than autonomous vehicle coordination.
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.
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.
...a luxury coach, with family compartments, toilets, DVD players, all that stuff, and stick a six- or eight-car trailer behind it.
We can do that today.
I've seen this in operation already.
There was this camper with bicycles attached to the back, towing a car, towing a trailer full of moterbikes and canoes. If that isn't a road-train, I don't know what it should be called.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
You're handing control over to another driver, who may very well decide not to brake and cause a five car pileup
The following cars are electronically linked in, they would also brake and the whole train would come to a stop. As long as each car (including the lead) was restricted to brake at the same rate as the car with the worst stopping time no collision would ever occur. Besides, if the distance between the cars is small enough, even a discrepancy in braking power that wasn't compensated for would only cause a slight difference in velocity before a collision occurred. The impact would be minimal unless the last vehicle was a truck with failed brakes; but TFA states that trucks would be at the front.
At the end of the day, we all put our lives in the hands of every other driver on the road anyway. Same thing if you ever get on a bus. As long as the systems were reliable I doubt it would add too much extra danger.
Eventually we'll get reliable remote control from the highways themselves though and then travel will be *awesome.* I envision a system where traffic light controlled intersections are replaced by precision timing. Cars would be staggered by about two cars lengths as they approached the intersection and would be timed such that they could pass through the intersection at full speed without colliding. Of course, the drivers would have to be removed from the loop entirely and every vehicle would have to be completely reliable. If it did work though, could you imagine passing mere meters from other vehicles travelling perpendicular to your vehicle all at a couple hundred km/h? Of course by then we'll all have jet-packs anyway, right? Right?!?
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
So of course the question that would keep anyone from joining this... who pays for damages to your car if the professional driver crashes YOUR car??
This has been done before, and better, in California. See Demo 97.
There's considerable military interest in follow-the-leader systems for convoys. The military routinely drives trucks around in big groups. The US Army has a system in test where the lead vehicle (usually armored) leads a group of driverless trucks. That's to reduce casualties, not labor.
The fundamental problem with most automated driving schemes is that they address driving on freeways, which people don't mind all that much. Automatically retrieving your car from a parking garage or lot and bringing it to you would actually sell.
>>>Maybe there should be car-carrying trains. Or stop building sprawl. Anyway, actual trains are far more efficient than this could ever be.
I'm an environmentalist, but I never felt the need to life in order to push my cause (as you apparently do). Typical trains use the equivalent of 1 gallon gasoline every 25 passenger-miles. My Honda Insight hybrid using that same 1 gallon can achieve 75 passenger-miles (or 150 passenger-miles if I carry a friend).
The reason trains are so inefficient is due to their frequent stops and starts
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
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.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
This will give an entirely another meaning to the expression "L'enfer, c'est les autres".
So you need one professional driver for every 8 cars to do the driving. How is it saving fuel if for every 8 cars your new train system has to have 1 more car burning fuel? You're adding 12.5% in fuel to save a few mpg.
Hmmm. That doesn't quite work for me. What if we called them, say... CONVOY!
"The system is designed primarily at cutting fuel consumption, travel time, and congestion."
I call bull! The system is designed at cutting salary costs for truck drivers. Even if the drivers stay in the trucks while they are being controlled by the lead vehicle, they can sleep in that time so it probably won't count as working time.
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.
Or maybe the lack of speeding would remove the revenue incentives for having stupid speed limits, and the limits would get raised to something sane.
They seem to be assuming some idealistic world where everything goes as they plan.
I mean, how will the system react to motorcyclist merging into the middle of it to pass to the other side? What about a car trying to merge into the middle of it? Proper driving distance requires enough space for that to happen after all. Do they really expect to have an 8 car merging dead zone?
If they're in the left lane then they need to get into it somehow and I also doubt every car can drive at the speed limit (or above it rather) so the left is out. An eight car no merging zone would annoy a lot of people so every other lane is out as well.
That's not even getting into people who have malicious intent and try to make such a beast crash by, for example, running a specifically broken transmitter.
Ya I've seen this too. It was just North of North Battleford Saskatchewan and there was this car pulling a trailer and behind this was a nice boat. The problem is the car was in the ditch. Their road train started to fish tail. They were going down a hill. The trailer swung around and wiped out both back fenders of the car before it tore the hitch off. Then it headed into the ditched and did a couple summersaults. Since the boat was hooked to the trailer it also did a summersault as it broke the tie downs and left the trailer.
I would say the mess was something like 250-500 feet. The driver and his wife were sitting in the ditch with their heads in their hands. There was stuff like pillows and bedding and dishes scattered all over the place!
Too bad I didn't have my camera! BTW I was also towing my brand new boat but I knew better than to try to run a road train. I think to do this successfully you actually have to have brakes on the trailers.
Is this where I put in the "In Soviet Russia" joke?
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.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
What happens when one of the vehicles in the "road train" has a blowout, or something like that?
Proverbs 21:19
More likely you pay a fee, so you get to use the "road train" and go faster. How's that for your revenue incentive?
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Ah ah !
20% less fuel for the vehicles following the main vehicle..
(they forget to mention the *EXTRA* fuel expense for the leading vehicle that is basically towing the others..)
Basically, no one will ever want to be in front (look at cycle races.. it only works if people take turns at being the 1st in line..)
--Ivan
Presumably, the efficiency comes from the lack of stop-and-go (and other variations in speed) not from "drafting" behind the lead car.
Drafting requires extreme proximity between vehicles...we're talking like 6ft/2m or so for vehicles of typical size. At even moderate highway speeds (60mph/100kph) that leaves about a twentieth of a second between vehicles, which is probably too much for even a computer to manage effectively, given the limits of the mechanical systems involved. And at lower speeds, the advantage of drafting is negligible.
This morning, I drove about 20 miles in extremely dense traffic. "Bumper to bumper", and about 15 miles below speed limit. I could see the lead vehicles at every curve in the road. They were side by side, matching speeds. In front of them, there were no cars (none!) on the road, as far as the eye could see.
"Drafting" might help fuel economy, but the only way it could reduce congestion or travel times would be if we can also get some of the idiots off of the road.
Ahh yes, truely narcissistic attitude. Nuke those that dare build somewhere I disgree with.
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.
Sounds workable to me.
I've seen things when they get busy around here. I'd much rather go 70mph (or even 45mph) than the maybe 10 you can average during congestion.
To say nothing of cities with bigger traffic problems like DC, San Fran, or LA.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
This is interesting, in its way, but there are so many hurdles to overcome that claiming it's 'soon' to be rolled out it becomes a rather blatant search for publicity. And, oh look, it worked.
As usual, mother nature is way ahead of us.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
I would indeed pay for that ability, especially on long haul drives (100+ miles).
Why am I really scared by the idea that every car will be remotely controllable via a wireless connection? Of course there's no risk. It's completely inconceivable that someone will figure out how to hack into the control system, bypassing whatever authentication is required and taking control of random cars as they drive down the road. We all know things like that could never happen, since of course these cars will have unbreakable security.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
I've been involved in a few of the projects financed by this plan. Let's just say that delivering a working (or even realistic) system is not part of the objectives of most of those projets. Oh yeah, and in order to get funded, your proposal has to read like a SF book and usually has to involve a real AI.
Really those projets are designed to bring together companies and academics, and to distribute lots of money. Advancing the state of the art is nothing but a nice (and unexpected) side effect.
In the southern hemisphere there already Road Trains.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_train
I call Shenanigans!
Facts are otherwise and here they are.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
nice boat
What if you have fallen asleep at the wheel when it disengages?
Even worse if you are a heavy sleeper who can't be woken by normal alarms.
I agree with Glen Beck - Don't let the government take away our freedom to drive!! Say no to Obamatrain.
>>>Source: Australian Greenhouse Office.
Yeah I trust them..... about as much as I trust Minister Conroy's claims that the internet needs to be universally-filtered by the government. I see with my own eyes the Washington D.C. metros running late at night, barely any passengers on board. That's a lot of wasted energy to run ~100,000 pound trains, with frequent stops and starts, and virtually nobody on board. A 2000 pound car would be more efficient.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
What you should do is create a dedicated lane that is controlled entirely by computer...
If you had bothered to RTFA, you might have noticed this statement:
We're looking at what it would take to get platooning on public highways without making big changes to the public highways themselves.
They're not claiming this is the best or only way to do this. They're specifically looking for a solution that would work on existing highways.
And the sprawl that already exists?
Those areas will urbanize over time, assuming that our population continues to increase. It's crazy to continue development without any urban planning.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
It could keep you stuck to the train unless you acknowledge the disengage warning.
Where's my patent?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
They're looking for that old film from one of the proving grounds. You know which one I mean.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
GM did this "car train" thing as an advanced research project back in the late 1970's in Cincinnati, OH.
Couldn't find a link, but remember reading about it.
The article never says that such a system "could soon be rolled out in Europe." What it says is that the European Union is doling out grant money to researchers to study such a system, and that they might try some live experiments. It's pretty clear that this is still a research project, with many technical, regulatory, and societal hurdles to clear before we see it in action.
Not sure why this got modded down, it seems plausible to me.
25 years driving - I've never had one, neither has my sis, nor brother, nor Mom, nor Dad, nor best friend, etc. That's just 0 in 200 years driving experience
Found a few flat tires when I've left my car overnight, from a nail picked up though.
..........FULL STOP.
ever notice the cars that do have problems on the road?
It's pretty frequent, as in a *daily* occurrence. If any of those cars were near or in the trains, it's just something that has to be dealt with and accounted for.
Modern cars are pretty good on average, but the law of averages always catches up eventually. Steering rods, brakes, alternators...lots of potential problems. Hell I've even seen someone's wheel literally come off at highway speeds; as in the lug nuts were either rusted through or they didn't tighten them properly. That's the type of thing that a 'train' would have to deal with.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Those in following vehicles could take their hands off the wheel, read a book or watch TV, while they travel along the motorway.
From what Ive seen commuters have been doing this and more for a long time.
..this is a road train
IMHO the engage/disengage part is the tricky part!
They probably have solved the 'train lane' part (easy) but I wonder how you can engage/desengage safely in this kind of the 'train', especially as the lane next to the 'train lane' is used by manually driven cars..
I've seen things when they get busy around here. I'd much rather go 70mph (or even 45mph) than the maybe 10 you can average during congestion.
To say nothing of cities with bigger traffic problems like DC, San Fran, or LA.
That's the other problem. How do you get across 3-4 lanes of stop-and-go DC beltway traffic to the 'fast' train lane (presuming not everyone will have a capable car) to the far left lane which is traveling 70mph and enter safely? Probably will require two lanes, one as a merge lane only during rush hour. But again, good luck convincing city planners to give up 2 lanes, and preventing accidents with manual-drivers interfering with the train.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
Many, many years ago I vaguely remembering a discussion between some relatives of mine about drafting to get better milage. I seem to recall one potential problem that was mentioned was that trailing cars might not get the airflow for cooling the engine that was expected by the designers. None involved in the discussion were experts. I wonder if there's anything to that line of thinking...?
Just put three small lights in the center of the rear bumper:
Green - accelerating
Yellow - feet off pedals, engine is dragging
Red - braking (redundant)
Maybe make both yellow turn signals come on for feet off pedals.
"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers
In a hundred more years, they'll do more math, and discover that efficiency will increase greatly with reducing friction, creating straight lines, predictable, computer-monitored and guided paths. They'll make steel roads, steel wheels. Flat, straight, and long, with soft curves. Perhaps with two parallel steel guides, perhaps with one overhead guide. They'll plot the locations of the guides and trains on maps and computers. They'll allow the the cars to simply lock onto one another, and travel as one big element. Most likely unlocking from each other to stop individually at their streetss, or stations, whatever. But none of this will be coordinated by a public group, much less a goverment, all will be privately owned and sold by public corporations, ten generations of mass-produced technologies, all built, bought, tested, crashed, and discarded, one by one, paid by you.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
I had a tire that was patched by a plug, completely explode when traveling at 65mph.
I've seen tires explode on semi's barreling down the highway too.
Anything can happen.
The goal of computer science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it.
PRT - Private Rapid Transit is old, has lots of different companies, solutions, implementations, and tests, and works great! The only problem as usual, is that it's too efficient - it doesn't waste and crash lots of cars and break lots of parts, require constant maintenance, insurance, fuel, roads, service stations, parking lots, resellers, etc, "generating" millions of jobs, and make lots of money for lots of companies. It just gets built once, requires only a few maint guys, and just works. So when we invent a new form of economy, not socialism or capitalism, maybe we'll have it. Till then, plod along at 35mph in a 120mph-capable steel box, surrounded by amateur drivers in their own private steel boxes, consuming 30% of the average salary and killing a couple users once in a while.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
THIS is a road train. =]
Makes sense to me!
If you don't acknowledge the normal alarm you could have it drift your car over to hit the rumble strips along the side of almost every interstate.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
few years ago when reading an article about plug-in hybrids. Forget the professional driver, we have all the building blocks to fully automate cars in specialized highway lanes now. Think of it as a high speed lane with a premium toll charge to pay for maintenance. Cars need to meet minimum standards such as be a plug-in hybrid modified to pull power from the roadbed, have GPS, on-board distance monitoring sensors, etc, to participate (perhaps checked during a standard annual inspection like many states now require). I am sure traffic specialists can handle the merge and breakdown issues without too much difficulty. Basic premise, use an EZ-Pass system or similar to charge for lane access, once in the lane, the car switches to fully electric propulsion and receives a charge from the roadbed (think trolley). GPS and sensors control location, speed and distance between vehicles. Make the distance equal the distance of the weakest braking system in the line plus a few feet for safety. The system would need to alert the driver a few miles before the exit and require some signal from the driver that they were awake and ready to assume manual control (push a button, whatever) before disengaging. Otherwise, the vehicle could be routed into an overflow area and a signal sent to police or highway personnel to check the driver's status. This would require some investment in infrastructure, but could be phased in over time and existing vehicles could be retrofitted without much difficulty. Think of the job opportunities!
I remember seeing a demo of this on the old TV show 'Beyond 2000' back in the late 90s.