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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."
The lead vehicle is a purpose-built vehicle driven by a professional driver, not a 'passenger' of the train.
-mkb
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 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."
You just got troll'd!
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.
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.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
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.
Have gnu, will travel.
Not necessarily true. I've seen a deer run straight into the side of a car stopped in a traffic jam. They're unpredictable when panicked.
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.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
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.
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
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.