Driverless longhaul rigs now available, well sorta

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cycleops612

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Sydney Australia, Me: 70kg/154lb. 350w, 22kg ex ba
I lied, but close to in convoy form, absolutely, available now.

They always do this. with every advance, instead of addressing the costeffective low hanging fruit, they go for the sexy mass market which has little use for it relatively. The prius would have been far better as a light delivery vehicle than a yuppy statement to sit idle mostly.

All this fuss about driverless cars, but what about the big road users first? Thats where there is a big easy payoff.

Common, "Active cruise control", auto distances itself from the vehicle in front.

Hobby RV drones can fly in very precise (to the cm~) formation by computing distance from the lead drone. I have seen groups of 6 flying countercircular to each other, indoors in a basketball court, & missing by a few cm.

SO:

Why not long haul trucks, w/ steering drivers as usual, but forming; computer optimised, wifi interconnected roadtrains on the open road? Easy on men, accidents, machines and fuel.

Even sorting trucks into like trains, like heavy, slow on hills, trains.

Its pretty much what happens now on the interstates, without the randomness and human error. Perhaps only master drivers, perhaps with co-drivers, to monitor extra road information on screens, get to be train leaders, & get paid more somehow.

Road trains can merge and make gaps, depending on conditions. For 3 or more level lanes, they could even form a continuous block for kilometers.

Its quite possible, a smartphone and adaptive cruise control are all the hardware tools needed for the app.

Just sharing a thought that may generate some interesting debate.

As most know, here in outback Oz, we have roadtrains of 5? trailers behind one prime mover, so it does happen.
 
I think at least some highways in the US need rebuilding, with a long haul truck lane. Like I 10 for example. Exits for that lane would be every 150 miles or something like that. Possibly follow the train track route, rather than actually being part of the 10.

Once on the long haul lane, trucks would be able to link up with the truck ahead of them, and run with minimal space between. More than just sensing the truck ahead, it would actually be in synch with a designated lead truck, which could be robo driven. Trucks would group up by weight, so all the slow ones would be on the same "train".

The result would be trucks could run close to each other, with better aero for the following trucks. The drivers could actually go sleep the first 700 or so miles of the trip from the LA docks.

Costly of course, but it sure would be nice to eliminate the way the ten is now. One truck going 65, being passed by another going 66. Meanwhile you are in a car wanting to go 80, bottled up.
 
dogman dan said:
I think at least some highways in the US need rebuilding, with a long haul truck lane. Like I 10 for example. Exits for that lane would be every 150 miles or something like that. Possibly follow the train track route, rather than actually being part of the 10.

Once on the long haul lane, trucks would be able to link up with the truck ahead of them, and run with minimal space between. More than just sensing the truck ahead, it would actually be in synch with a designated lead truck, which could be robo driven. Trucks would group up by weight, so all the slow ones would be on the same "train".

The result would be trucks could run close to each other, with better aero for the following trucks. The drivers could actually go sleep the first 700 or so miles of the trip from the LA docks.

Costly of course, but it sure would be nice to eliminate the way the ten is now. One truck going 65, being passed by another going 66. Meanwhile you are in a car wanting to go 80, bottled up.
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Good idea, especially the sleeping bit, an advantage that would make them not mind so much, even if a slower route.

all things being equal, such lower accident risk streamlined convoys on dedicated ought be faster on the road.

The swiss have steel road i believe. All thru trucks must go by train or some such.

For the record, I would add that the routes need only be quite cheaply paved, more like two separated footpaths for the wheels to precisely follow, truck tracks?.

But less ambitiously,done right, this app would free a lane or more on the existing freeway, for a pittance.

I hear gridlock is mainly caused by dopes trying to merge, much as you say - passing at 1kph and blocking traffic - its a big factor in net traffic flows.
 
All Interstate/long haul heavy freight should be on Rail.....preferably electric powered !
Cheaper, faster, safer could even be fully automated with driverless trains, and if containerised they could be quickly offloaded/loaded at terminals ready for local area distribution.....much like sea freight is now.
Road freight should just be local distribution only.
Sadly, Austrailia's rail network is very sketchy and very old...other than the dedicated ore trains.!
 
Hillhater said:
All Interstate/long haul heavy freight should be on Rail.....preferably electric powered !
Cheaper, faster, safer could even be fully automated with driverless trains, and if containerised they could be quickly offloaded/loaded at terminals ready for local area distribution.....much like sea freight is now.
Road freight should just be local distribution only.
Sadly, Austrailia's rail network is very sketchy and very old...other than the dedicated ore trains.!
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re "They always do this. with every advance, instead of addressing the costeffective low hanging fruit, they go for the sexy mass market", yep, gotta agree, rail is even more low hanging for this stuff. Why e.g., with all this smart stuff, are they too dumb to manage w/o dual track all the way. Surely the expensive bits like tunnels can be juggled safely for single line for both directions (as was the case in the early days - they telegraphed ahead).

But no, you have to be very careful with draconian absolute measures like that. incentivise them into changeing habits, which can be in the form of punitively or user pays taxing bad habits for society.

The magic thing about trucks is they are independent and point to point. . In oz, the killer market e.g. is onite melb<>syd<>brisbane. No way you could involve a train and pick up arvo, deliver next morning. They just make it as it is. I am sure many US key markets are similar.

Dunno about track, but oz has some good strategic freight lines. Darwin e.g. is a huge shortcut for surface freight from w/e asian hubs like HK. by truck darwin sydney is 44 hours. The rail line caters well for the more eastern cities, including adelaide.

what i suggest i believe combines the best of both, and is doable and practical now. Just good cruise control, a smartphone and an app. No infrastructure or paradigm shifts required.
 
You can actually operate a self-driving (not driverless) truck from Daimler legally in Nevada USA. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-14/daimler-s-freightliner-tests-self-driving-truck-in-nevada

From what I gather all major truck manufacturers are working on straight-up driverless trucks. International, Freightliner, Volvo, Benz all have programs with major funding. With Tier 1 suppliers having their own projects (Bosch, Continental). This is the next Internet and billions of dollars of RnD and acquisition are in play preparing for the major battle for this technology over the next decade.

...

The real question in my mind not if or when, but what are all these unemployed operators going to do?
 
Yeah faster rail would be great. Separate track, no stops for any city smaller than Phoenix or Vegas. Put containers on those, then have Trucks meet them in the big cities it does stop at.

Lots of that stuff could go straight to the brand new intermodal facility near El Paso, then truck from there instead of from Long Beach. But the container train needs to be going faster than 50 mph to do it. Have it go 100.

Similar rail to truck facilities could be built near Vegas, Albuquerque, Phoenix. All well out of town of course. The current slow ass container trains, that stop too often to drop three cars, doesn't cut it. It needs to be fast as hell to compete with truck from the port. Whole trains that go straight to a big city, 500 miles away, fast. Then unload fast, just like at the port.

Part of the problem for me at least, on the ten, is that long haul trucks can't enter of leave LA till midnight. So starting about 10 am, a huge glut of trucks heading to LA, to arrive at midnight. On the other side, heading away from LA, it starts more like noon. Huge glut of trucks, really racing now, going towards Texas. Night mare driving for AZ and NM, pretty much all day on the 10. Thanks LA.

About 60 miles of truck only highway so trucks could get into Long Beach anytime would actually help a ton. Eliminate that nascar start at midnight every night, leaving Long Beach harbor. If they could leave LA in daylight, lots of em would pass through here at night.
 
A Puzzle?

Can you think of a common big rig, where the trailer is one big unused regen energy storage vessel~?

Refrigerated transport.

Freezers only run only from engine sourced power when mobile, yet a partly regen powered, freezer, could absorb big shunts of braking power, assuming the cargo can be at a reasonable range of temperatures - overchill a bit on descents e.g. The engine power is still used, just less so.

Maybe not a big issue on long haul, but the motors sure seem busy on delivery trucks to me.

Of course, it doesnt have to be electric regen power. The truck could be braked to a direct mechanical drive to a compressor, perhaps just simply to the wheels of the refrigerated trailer, not the truck cab.

Again, low hanging fruit, for regen, which is pretty useless on low mass cars, but good for heavy trucks, IF, they can store/absorb the considerable braking power bursts.
 
Now the picture is really coming together for me. I've always said that MAYBE self driven cars will reduce the total number of accidents, but the only drop will be in fender benders --- Big fatality pileups will increase! MAN, the self driving big rigs are gonna kill a LOT of people. Imagine as additional self driving rigs join the pileup.
 
Always the potential for the drunk fool to run the stop, and even better reaction time from robots won't defy the laws of physics. That's sort of why I like the idea of the trucks having their own highway where traffic is that heavy. One exit per 200 miles. Once on, nothing dumb going on. Or move the place the trucks pick up 300 miles inland.

I could see mixing robo driven cars and trucks with hard to predict human drivers being a problem. Third robo drive lane on the highway could be cool.

Robo driving in the parking lot could be a real money saver. Or,,, the #^&%^&$# store could just stripe the lot with a foot wider spaces. :roll:
 
Any software that will run is more consistent and reliable than the best human driver. We don't need to wait for perfection; we only need to establish that self-driving cars have become categorically better drivers than humans. Once we can do that, I believe we should ban manually driven motor vehicles from cities. OTR trucks are a comparatively simple and economically advantageous case, so they should be among the first self-driving vehicles on the road.

We've sacrificed more than enough lives and livelihoods on the altar of the car and truck. It's anybody's right to be a dumb jerk, but not at the wheel of a lethal machine. Enough is enough.
 
induna said:
And we all know how reliable and bug-free software is...What could possibly go wrong?
Click to expand...

Vehicle control systems are developed more like a heart pacemaker than developed like bug-ridden consumer software. Pacemaker software saves thousands of lives and driverless trucks and cars will save many more.
 
Chalo said:
Any software that will run is more consistent and reliable than the best human driver. We don't need to wait for perfection; we only need to establish that self-driving cars have become categorically better drivers than humans. Once we can do that, I believe we should ban manually driven motor vehicles from cities. OTR trucks are a comparatively simple and economically advantageous case, so they should be among the first self-driving vehicles on the road.

We've sacrificed more than enough lives and livelihoods on the altar of the car and truck. It's anybody's right to be a dumb jerk, but not at the wheel of a lethal machine. Enough is enough.
Click to expand...

Of course humans generally fail discretely and not systemically as interconnected autonomous systems can, which is the great danger.

I get that you believe that human technology can mitigate harmful human behavior. I guess I really don't.
 
montyp said:
induna said:
And we all know how reliable and bug-free software is...What could possibly go wrong?
Click to expand...

Vehicle control systems are developed more like a heart pacemaker than developed like bug-ridden consumer software. Pacemaker software saves thousands of lives and driverless trucks and cars will save many more.
Click to expand...

Pacemaker software is trivially simple in comparison. Complexity encourages bugs. Hell, it pretty much mandates them.

Humans will view a machine software failure that results in death much more seriously than they do a human idiot causing death. Much like they are more worried about thousands of trivial, statistically insignificant dangers, than they are about their behavior on the road.

Where I live, I will be long dead before there are any autonomous vehicles, so I guess my interest is merely academic.
 
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