future tech November 16, 2009 posted by Debra Atlas

Is a “road train” in our future?

sartre Is a road train in our future?

The idea of letting your car drive itself has been around since the Jetsons. Now the European Union is testing out this concept in the form of a Road Train.

With the idea of cutting down on fuel consumption, over the next three years the EU will test the Safe Road Trains for the Environment (SARTRE), where eight vehicles would be linked by wireless sensors to operate as one “train.” A professional driver would control the “train”, monitoring what’s around each vehicle. Even cars, buses and trucks could join the convoy.

Tests for this innovative system will begin on test tracks in the UK, Spain and Sweden and eventually on public roads in Spain. There are still plenty of kinks to work out. If successful, drivers will have to pay for this transportation service. Pleasure does have its price!

Tags: road+train, self+driving+cars

About the Author:

Debra Atlas is a freelance environmental writer and eco-enthusiast based in Northern California, and is the Red Ferret’s Ecological Editor. Debra looks for the upside of eco-change - what’s positive, making a difference. She hunts down those interesting things cooked up by creative minds, especially if they’re strange and eccentric.

Debra Atlas – who has written 298 posts on The Red Ferret Journal.

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http://intensedebate.com/people/Nigel Nigel Powell

So let me get this right. I'm expected to attach myself to a convoy travelling at 70 mph 6 inches apart, and then when I want to leave easily peel off to my exit ramp without tail-ending the guy in front or side-swiping some poor dude coming up on the blind-side? Sounds truly like Utopia to me. Oh yes.
drwtf

Why not? The cars behind you are on automatic control, if you brake they brake.
GOd

So not only do you have to follow a slow ass bus, but you have to follow every car within a foot or so? What happens if the lead car needs to make a quick stop, and not every car has the same braking capability? I think this will lead to quite a few fender benders.
- dylan
  
  To quote the article: "There are still plenty of kinks to work out."
  
  Seriously, if you're going to comment on an article, at least read the article….
  - JeO
    
    Yes, one of those kinks would be figuring out how to prevent a complete 100 car pile up in the event any number of things went wrong!
- tobo
  
  imagine the braking system of all vehicles being controlled by a master… like brake by wire but brake by wireless.
Andrew

Nothing in this article indicates that the cars are traveling at less than safe stopping distance.
- Bubba
  
  Other than the photo
Lee

What about liability? What happens if the "professional driver" makes a mistake?