Europe's SARTRE project has reached another key milestone with a successful multi-vehicle event.
Follow the leader, SARTRE latest success Image: Volvo Trucks |
SARTRE, Safe Road Trains for The Environment, intends to provide a technological solution to reduce vehicle emissions and accidents on highways by creating platoons, or controlled lines, of vehicles.
After initial tests, reported in the OATS LRC at the begining of 2011 which involved a single vehicle, the latest event created a road train of four vehicles.
The SARTRE truck was followed by three cars at speeds of up to 90km/h but with no more than a six metre gap between them at any time. The project is intended to demonstrate that that platooned traffic technology can be implemented on conventional highways alongside other, non-platooned, road users.
The project involves seven European companies including Volvo, Ricardo and Sweden's SP Technical Research Institute and is part-funded by the European Commission. Platooning vehicles offers potential fuel consumption savings of around 20%, as well as reducing human-error and fatigue-induced accidents.