Slashdot Mirror
"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."
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.
This seems like it could be pretty bad if there was an accident.
Maybe there should be car-carrying trains. Or stop building sprawl. Anyway, actual trains are far more efficient than this could ever be.
You could, you know, drive your car onto the train.......
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
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.
Hell, apparently, is other drivers.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
"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.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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!
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.
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.
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.
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 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 death trap? Do you not think anyone working on this will have your sagacity and forethought? Where in the plans did you see 'Ensure vehicles have NO ESCAPE (muahahaha)'?
"What if the guy in front of me is one of those smokers whom flicks ashes all over my car ventilation system? Bonus points if I'm allergic / asthmatic? Or an unmaintained beater pumping my car full of particulates, unburned hydrocarbons, and carbon monoxide? I bet an unmaintained diesel could literally kill someone, maybe not the driver, maybe a passenger, maybe a sleeping baby... What if a driver in the train passes out from the CO fumes, or has a heart attack or whatever, is everyone in front of him just dead meat when he plows into them?"
OK, so you don't like highways. We get it. This isn't meant to solve any of the personal problems you have with cars. It's to make the method of travel slightly more convenient and slightly more efficient. All of those things are issues today, and would not be made worse.
"What if the lead driver successfully goes thru a big puddle, flooding my intake and blowing my engine, and then I'm crashed into by the remainder of the train?"
Last time I went through a puddle there wasn't a tidal wave behind me.
"What if its typical winter weather conditions, with patches of ice/snow, my car is ordered to brake, but I spin out of control into other vehicles because my individual car was on a patch of snow/ice/sand at that instant? Or just simply plow into the vehicles in front of me, whom can't accelerate out of the way because they are now temporarily on an icy patch?"
You're the stupid kind of brave if you don't already fear these things on TODAY'S ROADS.
"What if, being the ridiculously hyper-paranoid USA, the lead vehicle is a terrorist/rapist/pedo/filesharer (according to my TV, aren't they all the same?)"
Then you'll never know or care. Stupid question.
"What if, the lead vehicle routes us thru an area that is ethnically incorrect, and the police pull me over (the crime of Driving While Black in a White Neighborhood, etc)."
Your post isn't even amusing, it's just painful.
"What if a vehicle is carjacked while in a train, is the lead vehicle liable? What if the lead vehicle was working with the carjackers?"
They'll jack a parked car instead, you dumb piece of shit.
"What if the lead driver drives over a pothole fast enough to set off my airbag, but not his?"
Then that sucks for you.
"What if the lead vehicle makes a minor traffic error that results in no physical problems, but some legal problems? Like not slowing down for an unmarked speedtrap? Everyone gets a ticket, only the lead, maybe the system designer or manufacturer or dealership? Who pays for the higher insurance?"
What if you had actually thought about the bullshit you asked and tried to determine if it was a valid question or if it instead tried in vain to disingenuously prove a point?
I think this is more suited to commercial travel (trucks) and military convoys. If I wanted to have all the inconvinience of train travel, I'd just take a train and get the disadvantages and advantages of riding on a train.
Free Martian Whores!
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 properly to independent human behavior at that speed in unknown conditions seems a steep steep hill to climb.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Speaking as a professional driver. I would be FAR more interested in YOUR driving record. We lose our licenses for things that would only result in a small fine for you. Four wheelers scare the hell out me. Most drive with their brain disconnected and their heads WAAAAAY up their collective asses. Starbucks in one hand and cell phone in the other. Yes, some professionals are no better but as a group, our safety records way outshine most non-professionals.
... 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.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
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.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Just though i would point out that the ability for a motorcycle to brake faster than a car or truck is a myth. If you have a car or truck setup with the same quality tyres and brakes as a performance motorcycle you will find they stop in the same or less distance (Due to certain circumstances where a larger contact patch is benificial such as braking on dirt etc). (I am a motorcyclist also =p).
riiiight, and the space program never had any failures, and computer programs never have bugs or even crash! Isn't this a wonderful world we live in?
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 gaps big enough to ensure that even if one train is brought to a sudden halt (say by hitting a falling tree or a rogue motorist) the one behind has space to do a controlled stop.