Road Trains for Europe long-dist. Pos Amtrak competition?

A news article that describes a road traveling "train" of vehicles proposed in Europe. In one form or another this could be competition for Amtrak if implemented in the USA:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8349923.stm

Road trains like that will probably never happen in the USA. What happens when the first car has a flat tire, do all the following cars wreck into like at Talladega? Or suppose a car in the next lane changes lanes into this train uncontrollably?

While the following cars may be saving gas, the lead car will not. If you were the lead car, would you be kind an accept another car saving gas at your expense while tailgating you? Sorry to admit, not me.

Platooning has been talked about for years now, but there are a number of barriers to its success that simply can't be answered.

1. The energy savings just aren't great, unless you have the cars stay right behind one another.
2. Lane changes would be extremely dangerous.
3. Only the single rearmost car in the platoon can safely leave; others would need to be booted out to the side in order to leave the platoon. This is a huge limit on capacity. The article says you would open a bigger gap, but the problem is that you can't switch the car to manual in the middle of the platoon, but you also can't wait until the car is out of the platoon to do so since then it would be mingling with non-automatic cars and is at risk for a collision.
4. Pricing and a workable business plan are lacking; having it as a free service would be prohibitively expensive (but highly ironic in America - "trains are a waste of government money, but ROAD trains? Now that's a different story..."), and a pricing plan for the service would be difficult to implement.
5. Platooning works best on relatively empty roads, of which there are a decreasing number nowadays. On congested roads, wireless interference (both in terms of noise, and the potential for hostile interference, such as hacking the wifi and having the cars crash into a wall or something.
6. You're reliant on the competence of the driver in front; this is the case for all transportation modes. The problem is that on roads, professional drivers are forced to intermingle with unprofessional drivers, which means it's inherently more dangerous. If the lead car gets into a crash, every car behind it would also end up in a chain reaction collision (given the number of cars, all such crashes would have high fatality rates).
7. Auto-drive is problematic since different types of cars have different characteristics. While smooth driving might be easy enough, sudden braking or swerving to avoid hazards would mean the computer on the lead car would have to suddenly calculate a long list of variables (road conditions, speed, handling characteristics of cars in platoon, etc.) in a very short time, and for a number of cars.
8. Compatibility would hinge on dedicated software, massive overhauls for existing cars (or purchasing a new car), and new internal hardware. The cost of the software for a wirelessly controlled autopilot that also is highly reliable and precise would be in excess of $5000.
9. If one car's auto-drive broke, the whole train will likely break; even a decent safety record would require multiple redundant backups and a fail-safe device, which again raises the cost.
10. This might work on a smooth, dry, and somewhat empty test tracks with limited radio interference, but conflicting traffic, radio interference, poor roads, and weather issues all make this much more difficult.

So in short, no.

electricron wrote: While the following cars may be saving gas, the lead car will not. If you were the lead car, would you be kind an accept another car saving gas at your expense while tailgating you? Sorry to admit, not me.

The whole idea is that the lead car is specialized and professionally driven; think of it as being the lead car on an EMU. Such a set-up is necessary since you would need a powerful computer and heavy wireless equipment to control the other cars in the platoon.

electricron wrote:Road trains like that will probably never happen in the USA.

Precisely the attitude the leaves the US behind Europe in so many respects.

theWatusi wrote:

electricron wrote:Road trains like that will probably never happen in the USA.

Precisely the attitude the leaves the US behind Europe in so many respects.

I find it hard to believe it will happen anywhere at all. I can't see it in Europe. The train idea is good. The close guidance of the wheels is good too. And if you couple the cars together... Hey, you have a train.

This has as much possibility of competing with Amtrak as squirrel-powered flying carpets. Locked and unloaded.

Not Amtrak related

Not even railroad-related!

Judging by the subjects of some of the other articles, the publication linked appears to be on a par with our own Popular Mechanics/Popular Science. There are some sound technological principles behind it, but there are also a lot of barriers, both physical and economic, that would have to be overcome before the idea could assume a form in synch with present realities.

It's the sort of theory that might be recalled and built upon a few years down the road, but most likely with a few wrinkles not foreseeeable at the present time. Remember, Trains published an artice on the feasibility of what became Auto-Train back around 1960 .... about a decade before the start-up, which was limited to two markets, only one of which proved sustainable, and that only under Amtrak.

theWatusi wrote:

electricron wrote:Road trains like that will probably never happen in the USA.

Precisely the attitude the leaves the US behind Europe in so many respects.

It will never happen in Europe either.

Don't doubt the technology we have.. There's still a lot of new technology coming in future.

One of them is already here. If I remember right, Volvo have somthing, I assume, "auto-braking" if car sense other car is slow or stopping and will engage the brake if driver does not response. I saw that on tv commerical during summer.

Since we already have speed control (aka cruise control which they cant call it anymore due to a fool who sued RV company - dont know if its true), I'm sure that they will come up with a sense that would lock on following car's speed and keep car safe distance from following during speed control engage. "hands off" steering wheel isn't that far...

They already did tested this in USA a while ago somewhere in west. I saw them on tv program... cant recall what.

sd80mac wrote:Don't doubt the technology we have.. There's still a lot of new technology coming in future.

One of them is already here. If I remember right, Volvo have somthing, I assume, "auto-braking" if car sense other car is slow or stopping and will engage the brake if driver does not response. I saw that on tv commerical during summer.

Since we already have speed control (aka cruise control which they cant call it anymore due to a fool who sued RV company - dont know if its true), I'm sure that they will come up with a sense that would lock on following car's speed and keep car safe distance from following during speed control engage. "hands off" steering wheel isn't that far...

They already did tested this in USA a while ago somewhere in west. I saw them on tv program... cant recall what.

automatic braking is limited, since it still has a non-zero reaction time and has a hard time calculating how much force is necessary. There's also no really good but also reliable sensor. Lasers have limited range (both distance and directional), have trouble tracking dirty cars, and often fail during bad weather (especially snow), and can refract at odd angles (leading to no data for the car). Visual systems can be fooled by optical illusions (such as "thinking" small cars are farther away because they are smaller). Infrared systems don't work with high temperatures (and roads are often very hot, especially in the summer) and also have some of the same problems as visual systems.

Radar is the only really reliable system since it can have a wide survey angle (and thus react to risks from different directions) and isn't affected by weather, but it suffers due to being affected by noise, other radar systems, and high cost. It also requires a lot of energy to continually beam out a decent radar signal that can be returned and interpreted; this leads to significantly higher fuel usage since more of the car's engine power has to be used for the radar system.

maintaining a constant speed (cruise control) and maintaining a set following distance are two entirely different animals. constant following distance (which I'll call CFD to save time) requires constantly making small changes in speed to adjust to other cars; this requires far more technology and far better precision than simply maintaining a constant speed. Given a constant grade and consistent road surface, cruise control doesn't require any changes once the set speed is reached.

As another side note, I highly doubt that, as some of the experts have said, these systems work well when most of the cars on the road don't have such features; I would imagine that many drivers would use the systems as an excuse to ignore other cars (rather than as a driving aid). ACC isn't infallible and often misinterprets information; the whole point of it is supposedly that drivers will be able to focus on scanning for hazards in more directions without having to worry about basic risks (i.e. blind spot checks without having to simultaneously ignore what's in front of the car). I doubt anyone would actually use the systems this way, especially given that drivers aren't professionally trained or given incentives to do more than the minimum needed to avoid collisions. The likely outcome of ACC is that those using it will be distracted from the road.

When I first saw the topic title, I though of one of these muscling through the streets of downtown Amsterdam

Sir Ray ,Thats abit of f topic , i think you should be made to check the tire pressures on that thing . at lunchtime , in the sun .