Objective
The project aims to encourage a step change in personal transport usage through the development of environmental road trains (platoons).
Systems will be developed that will facilitate the safe adoption of road trains on un-modified public highways with full interaction with non-platoon vehicles. These systems will be developed as prototype systems.
A scheme will be developed whereby a lead vehicle (initially a commercial truck) with a professional driver will take responsibility for a platoon. Following vehicles will enter a semi-autonomous control mode that allows the driver of the following vehicle to undertake other activities that would normally be prohibited for reasons of safety; for example, operate a phone.
The programme will address the 3 cornerstones of transportation issues, environment, safety and congestion while at the same time encouraging driver acceptance through the increased “driver comfort”.
The programme is addressing a concept that as a whole will facilitate a step change in the use of private transportation. The consideration of how platoons interact with other non-platoon users is a critical facet of the programme. This programme has a significant element of research that is looking into this aspect and this will provide clear strategies that will be implemented in the prototype system.
A further unique element of the programme is the interaction between the lead vehicle and the following vehicles and how this can lead to a new business model for road use. I.e. following vehicles may be charged to join a platoon.
The introduction of platooning on normal roads with private vehicles will achieve environmental benefits (with an estimated 20% emissions reduction), safety benefits (reduction of accidents caused by driver action) and a reduction on congestion (smoother traffic flow with potential consequential increase in throughput).
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
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Call for proposal
FP7-SST-2008-RTD-1
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
CP-FP - Small or medium-scale focused research projectCoordinator
BN43 5FG Shoreham By Sea
United Kingdom