A Platoon Of Networked Self-Driving Trucks Will Be Tested in the UK (phys.org)

An anonymous reader quotes the AP: Britain is set to conduct road trials of self-driving trucks, involving a "platoon" of vehicles controlled by a driver in the front. The Department for Transport said Friday that up to three trucks will travel in convoy, connected by Wi-Fi and with braking and acceleration controlled by the lead vehicle. Officials say the formation saves fuel and reduces carbon emissions, because the lead truck pushes air out of the way, making the others more efficient.

Comments

Call me a luddite....

[Half-pint HAL]

Call me a luddite, but why make this legal while there is still a ban on any vehicle having more than one trailer. Surely a multitrailer lorry-train with physical wires and wireless backup would offer all the same advantages, but be much safer and easier to manage? Not to mention less hackable.

Re:Call me a luddite....

[thegarbz]

Call me a luddite, but why make this legal while there is still a ban on any vehicle having more than one trailer.

It's a problem of dynamics when trailers are connected together. Independently controlled and steered units can compensate quite easily for any movement in the front. However when they are all connected together a wobble in the front can magnify quite badly in the back trailer, combined with some winds and these things are a nightmare on the road. I used to have to overtake road trains regularly on the way to work in Australia. The trick was, if you can overtake the rear trailer you're usually okay, but don't even consider doing it if it's windy or the road isn't perfectly straight.

Effect on global warming

[eminencja]

There is an accompanying study that says that a global deployment of such platoons may decrease the temperature increase by 4.27% over the next fifty years.

Does anyone know

[Anonymous Coward]

How these things work out the follow trucks get stuck at a red light or even behind just a slower vehicle? Are those things even possible? Do they start and stop from depots along the highway and have big flashing lights and warnings not to get in between them?
What happens if the wifi signal is lost? Are the trucks smart enough to pull over and stop? What if there is no shoulder?

Article is very short, no pictures or technical details.

Roads will fall apart - HV road damage

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever seen the roads mangled and road tar deformed where heavy buses stop all the time?

One truck wheel pushes down, and surface elasticity has time to push it back up.
Now in a close convoy the next wheel crushes that spot again - this is what happens when whackers and steamrollers compress road base. Even concrete roads are not immune to heavy damage. Nobody has consulted a road repair boffin.

All they see are safety issues. Road repair bills will skyrocket. Results will vary, but on superwet days, or hot/ freezing days, the avalanche of heavy tires will punish the roads.
That fact needs to be added to the model.

Re:Roads will fall apart - HV road damage

[Anne Thwacks]

All they see are safety issues.

Nope. Not even that. The reason we don't have lorries over 44 tons (and very few over 38t) is that the damage goes up with weight in an accident - the energy has to be dissipated somewhere.

See the Youtube video of Jeremy Clarkson driving an empty truck strait through a brick building, and then imagine Jeremy Clarkson driving three, fully loaded trucks!

And, as the AA pointed out, they will cause huge problems when people want to get on/off slip roads - same way bendy buses completely clogged the side roads in London.

It might work in America, where people often drive hundreds of miles non stop - but with the density of traffic on UK motorways and having to brake every couple of hundred yards, I can see this offering little to no benefit, and is probably worse than physically coupling the trucks. I'd trust a Westinghouse brake (no failures other than safe failures ever recorded in 150 years) over Wifi (no day without issues) any day.

Re:Roads will fall apart - HV road damage

[drinkypoo]

I have never seen a triple tow in the US, although I just heard some truckers talking about doing some the last time I was in for tires, so I know it happens. I don't think I've ever seen a non-professional double tow either, though those are legal in California.