Let me describe a form of transportation for you. Upon leaving the house and heading for work, a commuter find the nearest "terminal" and climb aboard the mass transit utility. This utility moves along a predetermined path (as do many other replicates of it) and at various points commuters get on and off as suits their personal commute. The mass transit utility is a large machine that is driven by a trained professional. If you get to a terminal and have missed the most recent mass transit utility, you simply wait for the next one and embark upon it.
What does this sound like to you? A bus system? A subway system? A train system? How about a car system? I admit from the get go that I have very mixed emotions about the road train system being proposed here:
Long-time readers of this blog know that I am all-in when it comes to getting driving out of the hands of human drivers. But the reason I am so mixed on Road Trains is this: it will almost certainly increase congestion.
When road train technology is commercialized, a driver equipped with platooning software could use an in-vehicle navigation screen to find the nearest platoon and drive to the end of it. At that point, the car could wirelessly connect to the platoon and take over braking, acceleration, and steering —and drivers could safety start texting or watching a movie.
Volvo imagines that professional drivers would lead each platoon, though there is no technical reason why regular drivers couldn't take over. But just as bus drivers are required to have special licenses, Coelingh believes that road train lead drivers should probably have special qualifications for the job. Employing professional drivers would also remove a lot of legal hurdles, since each road train would be led by a real, live human.
The designers make it sound so simple...just get on the highway and find the nearest road train to join. But what if it is in front of you? Do you speed up to catch it? That implies that either you break the speed limit (dangerous) or the road train is moving along below the speed limit (inefficient). Or do you slow down and let the road train behind you catch up and pass, then join it? That makes you a danger to people behind you, who have to get around.
The designers also seem to suggest that a huge, bulky vehicle lumbering down the highway, driven by a professional driver, would ease traffic. But it is my experience, here in reality, that tractor trailers (semis, big rigs, call them what you will) that are driven by professional drivers (isn't that what a CDL license is) do not mitigate traffic in any way, rather their slow acceleration only exacerbates areas of stop and go traffic.
I guess I just don't see the utility of this system. It seems like it would add another layer of complexity to traffic, and would although the time you spent lazily in autopilot in the road train would certainly relieve you of driving responsibilities (and by extension increase overall road safety) the perils of finding and joining a road train, much less the dangerous flux of cars in and out of a road train as they join or leave, would cause a net increase in danger on the roadways.
There is a utility for road trains, however. That utility would be on long drives to from city to city. Imagine leaving Kansas City, and instead of having to pay attention on the notoriously perilous Interstate 70 to St. Louis, you could join a scheduled road train for a small fee and just play scrabble until you got to StL. Over a long trip like that, the 15-20% increase in gas mileage accrued by being in the road train would be substantial and would justify the fee. The safety increase and the 4+ hours of free time you'd gain would also justify it. It'd be like...a greyhound bus system except at the end you have your car to tool around in.
But road trains for commutes...I'm not sold.
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