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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 plan is called "Sartre". My first reaction: What if there's No Exit?
I am officially gone from
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
Don't forget that if you're in front you're winning. A true gamer has rear view mirrors that say "Objects in mirror are losing".
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.
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.
Why is my first thought of someone playing 'crack the whip' on one of these long trains??
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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
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
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.
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.
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.
It involves people joining together which is clearly socialist.
Wait! What? Did someone on the internet admit they were wrong?
What the hell is going on???
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.
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
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat." Lily Tomlin