Government funding for autonomous truck research

[Jocko]

The Department of Transport has today announced funding for the Transport Research Laboratory to carry out trials of autonomous truck platoons of self-driving lorries to run in public on major UK roads by the end of 2018. This is part of an £8.1 government scheme to test the feasibility of truck “platooning”.

https://www.motoringresearch.com/car-news/self-driving-trucks-uk-roads-2018/

[culzean]

If this means an end to trucks pulling out to overtake the lorry in front at 0.0001 MPH faster speed and taking 5 miles to do it causing a big queue on a 2 lane motorway (and 3 lane as well,  but at least traffic can get past, although at a reduced rate),  then pulling back in front and traveling at exactly same speed as the truck it just passed then I am all for it - call themselves professional drivers,  surely a computer couldn't be worse.

Surely they don't do it to save fuel as they are pretty much always from different companies,  I am convinced they do it to piss other drivers off and probably have competitions to see who can 'collect' the most cars behind in the queue - boring job driving an HGV on a motorway,  have to pass the time somehow and not allowed to watch a movie,  but doesn't stop them playing with their phones.

[JohnAlways]

I understand the lead truck controls the following one or two other trucks. I was imagining the lead truck on the motorway pulling out to overtake a slow moving vehicle. Is that driver responsible for ensuring there is nothing overtaking the other two trucks at the time? I know there will be drivers in the other two trucks, so if one can't pull out because of overtaking traffic does he then have to "clog it" to catch up with the lead vehicles thus losing any fuel efficiency. As already raised I can't think this idea is a good solution on UK roads. We come to a standstill in the South West during summer, M4, M3, M25, M6, M60 come to a standstill all through the year, if lead vehicle manages to pull out the odds are the following vehicles won't. I only see this as workable on overnight trunkers where the motorways have reduced traffic.

[Jocko]

I'm sure these are the problems the research hopes to uncover and solve. I'm sure the autonomous cars in the outside lane will talk to the trucks and let them out! As for the driver in each truck. That is for the research. The goal is no driver in any of the trucks. Eventually.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIlCR4eG8_o

[culzean]

This is the kind of thing that works on roads with little traffic,  like American interstates and Australian roads ,  but they have road trains anyway with one tractor unit and multiple trailers,  so where is the benefit except you could maybe have trucks with different destinations teaming up for a while and then going their own way.

The first time a driverless truck piles into a traffic queue at full speed will cause a rethink on this whole thing.

[guest1372]

The goal is no driver in any of the trucks. Eventually.

Maybe couple them all together and give them dedicated low friction tracks to run on, with electric motors powered from overhead lines?

If we can't automate a train to the point where the driver can close the doors, then it's a good thing road freight is not unionised if this proposal is to have any traction.
--
TG

[guest5079]

Most of the concerns have already been raised by members BUT how does the 2nd and 3rd Truck negotiate the curves off the motorway? With the Brits dismal forward planning not all roads leaving or joining motorways have uniform curves. Who is the boffin that will work out the delay in the steering because if they don't get it right we will  have the 2nd and 3rd truck doing an impersonation of  the Grenadier Guards doing a left turn!!!!!! What happens if the lead truck pulls off the motorway only to be confronted with a traffic queue, will no 2 and 3 be parked on the motorway?.
On the lunchtime news it showed trucks I believe in Holland with a gap wider that the average HGV leaves between each other so how can that create a slip stream to save money.
Are we going to have thousands of acres of farmland going under concrete to create distribution centres alongside motorways? so that local deliveries can be made and as already been mentioned how many hauliers have three lorries all going to the same destination.
I thought we had railways for bulk movement.  8 million quid for some whitehall arse polisher to make a name for it's self!!!! Sorry about the expletive.

[VicW]

Another government department that suddenly has what it thinks is a brilliant idea but doesn't think it through.
One of the problems with HGV's is their habit of travelling in convoy with no gaps between them allowing smaller vehicles room to overtake. Now the DoT wants to make it legal.
What happens when one company doesn't have three trucks going the same way to make up the convoy, it will be too big a problem to get three separate companies to work together.
What happens when they need to leave the motorway?
A haulage company in Lincolnshire has been advocating for some time that artics should be allowed to pull a second trailer,a bit like a short road train. The owner has even built one for demonstrating but the DoT don't want to know but they come up with this train idea which,in my opinion, is fraught with problems.

Vic.

[Jocko]

It is research for when all the cars out there are autonomous and they all talk to each other and to the trucks. Once all the trucks are communicating it won't matter a damm what company the ywork for. They will just talk to one another via wi fi, and buddy up with others going in the same direction.
It will happen. If not in ten years, then maybe twenty or even fifty. But it will happen.

[ColinS]

When I was a lad they used to haul goods with one unit behind another and only one driver.  It was called a goods train!

[guest5079]

And then we have the whizz kid who comes up with a program that intercepts the signals sending trucks all over the motorway. I can just imagine IS and it's cohorts saying bring it on.

[guest5079]

Nothing to do with computer guided trucks, just thinking of what Jocko says about progress. In about 1947, yes I am that old, my Father took me on one of his trips. We went from London to Port Sunlight.I do not remember an awful lot of it but a firm called Base toys came out with a model of  a Foden eight wheeler. It is marked with the firm my Father worked for Bouts Tillotsons. On the rear wheel arch is a 20 speed limit. His truck pulled a trailer and I know he had to have a mate.
Imagine driving an eight wheeler with trailer at no more than 20 mph from London to Liverpool and back. It was no later than 1947 as all transport became BRS after that.
We have made progress but is this latest idea a step too far?
It is amazing to me that here we are in 2017 and I have a model that reminds me of something that occurred 70 yrs ago. What was spoken of in Jocko's silly moment about memory?

[Jocko]

And then we have the whizz kid who comes up with a program that intercepts the signals sending trucks all over the motorway. I can just imagine IS and it's cohorts saying bring it on.

That is something that will have to be addressed, and will, I have no doubt. I may be they go for something like an optical style link, where by the only way to interfere with the signal is to get precisely in line with it. Who knows. At the moment it is all just research, hence drivers in the cab, just in case.
Regarding trains, the idea with autonomous trucks of the future (and autonomous cars) is that individual trucks, from individual companies, heading for different destinations can platoon up on the motorway saving energy and space. The autonomous cars will do the same, all heading into the centre of the city in a platoon, then separating to go to their final destination.
I find it strange that an old man, like me (in my 70th years), can see the possibilities that improving technology brings, and where it could all be leading us. I think some of you must have worked for Kodak, at the turn of the century.

[culzean]

I think some of you must have worked for Kodak, at the turn of the century.

It was Kodak experimental division that invented the digital camera in 1975,  but as it threatened their lucrative film business they sat on it,  just like the oil people have with various alternative fuels (if you are into conspiracy theories),  just bought the companies and shelved the projects.   Problem is,  Kodak had a massive slice of a very profitable film business,  now no-one really makes money out of digital cameras and there are no 'consumables' to sell to people.

http://www.techradar.com/news/cameras/photography-video-capture/how-kodak-invented-the-digital-camera-in-1975-364822

Its all very well keep replacing people with robots and autonomous vehicles,  there are only so many jobs in tech companies - does not look good that  high tech software and hardware specialists will be shoveling money into their banks and everyone else on minimum wage zero hours contracts.   Less people paying taxes and governments paying out more in tax credits etc. to subsidise companies who pay minimum wages but no tax in the countries where they operate (Uber, Amazon, Google etc.) and who will be making even more profits that they don't pay tax on.

[Jocko]

I didn't say it would be a good thing. I just said it is going to happen. Big money will make it happen.
It is what happened to the British merchant fleet. Big money bought the companies then sold all the ships, preferring to hire them instead of own them. Putting thousands of British seamen on the beach, myself included. Big money does what makes big money, and b*gger the rest of us.