scanny77:
Assuming that this tech relies heavily on the truck reading the lines on the road, what happens when the government remove the lines from the road? They are funding this trial but at the same time they are looking at doing something which will effectively disable the trials.
I am sure our elected representatives have already solved this though with their collective expertise on such matters
Also roadwork sections.
I was driving one of those Iveco’s with the lane guidance system - makes a noise if you drift over lines, approaching J19 of M6(N) and it goes mad through the sections where you are guided on to the hard shoulder.
Tris:
Likely at 3 am with the road closed to all other traffic.
Apparently the first trial will be on the M6 north of Preston according to the BBC, although it then narrows it down to ■■■■■■■ as apparently there’s not as much traffic or junctions. 3am there’s defo not as much (if any) traffic, but during the day there only real options are between say Tebay and Penrith as the other bits are still quite busy and often have traffic backing up onto the motorway.
As I’ve said elsewhere, we’ve had self-flying planes for at least 20 years capable of every part of the flight from runway to runway at least, using the most highly controlled space in the world with computer systems massively more powerful than anything they can put into a truck. However, has anyone ever heard of anyone even hinting that they’d actually allow a plane to take off and land by itself never mind without a pilot? Nope…me neither. If they can’t do that, how on earth can they realistically expect properly self-driving trucks to be more than a tax writeoff for the R&D dept.
History is littered with grand ideas for automated this and that, but from where I’m standing it’s taken 40 years to get an automated lawn mower that can in theory cut the grass without mowing down the local cats or destroying your flowerbeds, so not too sure even the 20 year olds will have to worry too much.
For those who think the world will be automated, look up old episodes of BBC Tomorrow’s World and see how many came to production.
Edit: Actually this could seriously mess with tachos as if you’re observing the road ready to take over, is that “driving mode” or “other work” since you’re technically not actually driving even if the wheels are turning? Could you even class it as POA since you’re technically double manning, albeit with the computer as primary driver?
Juddian:
So the utopian ■■■■■■■■■ of eugenics will stop those less equal than others from polluting the land will it.
Presumably the new more equal brown shirts will be manning airports, tunnels, ports and entire coastline with machine guns, sorry humane plasma blasters, to stop less equal robotised migrants/asylum seekers/refugees/isis/bogeyman of the day from getting here after all then.
I’d love to know who’s going to buy all these efficiently transported goods when nobody less equal than others is working any more, maybe the more equal grandchildren of great commissars Blair and Cameron will dish our grovelling in the dirt less equal grandchildren serfs out a few pfennigs from their panzer hovermobile as they glide past under the shelter of their more equal halos.
If you threw in a bit of racism mate, I’d swear you were Alf Garnett!
Interesting to read an article regarding autonomous trucks and a quote from Sven Ennerst (Head of Truck Product Engineering at Daimler) who says “If Daimler is right, it is the job of traffic planners that will go through even more of an upheaval than that of truck drivers”
He goes on to say “We expect a change in the organisation of the freight forwarding industry. The driver will take over many of the traffic planner’s functions. He will become more of a transport manager than a driver, from our point of view”
“The technology will help solve the current acute driver shortage problem. We expect to make the drivers job more attractive by making it more of a transport managers job”
With the above he is referring to the fact that whilst the truck drives along, the driver can be online planning jobs, quoting and taking on work. As he enters the jobs into his iPad the truck simply re-routes itself and everything is simple
Daimler expect to see cost savings for hauliers due to no longer requiring as many ‘planners’ or ‘managers’ as the manager moves to the drivers seat and runs the business as the truck drives. “A new breed of drivers with more technical skills”
The Dutch expect the first live platoons of vehicles to be used by hauliers by 2020 on their motorways - although they are only working on trials of 2 or 3 vehicles in a platoon at the moment. Daimler expect their current Future Truck 2025 to be live on the roads in Europe ‘sooner rather than later’.
It’s like the space race for HGVs
Daimler see the current Future Truck 2025 as seen on videos released last year as being 5% more fuel efficient due to less acceleration and braking and less waiting in traffic by removing the ‘human element’.
I think the forthcoming UK Budget may have some interesting items in it with regard to self driving trucks.
I would expect in the future matrix signs warning of ‘Truck Convoys in Operation’, and some public awareness being raised of how it’s advisable to plan ahead for ones motorway exit in case of convoy blockage. Can see that working very well.
Special elite drivers will become pilots and gain an extra few letters on their licence as a licensed vehicle pilot and having passed a test to control Convoys of Unmanned Navigating Trucks.
I.e. C+E will become C+ UNT.
Dipper_Dave:
Special elite drivers will become pilots and gain an extra few letters on their licence as a licensed vehicle pilot and having passed a test to control Convoys of Unmanned Navigating Trucks.
I.e. C+E will become C+ UNT.
Tris:
Likely at 3 am with the road closed to all other traffic.
Apparently the first trial will be on the M6 north of Preston according to the BBC, although it then narrows it down to ■■■■■■■ as apparently there’s not as much traffic or junctions. 3am there’s defo not as much (if any) traffic, but during the day there only real options are between say Tebay and Penrith as the other bits are still quite busy and often have traffic backing up onto the motorway.
As I’ve said elsewhere, we’ve had self-flying planes for at least 20 years capable of every part of the flight from runway to runway at least, using the most highly controlled space in the world with computer systems massively more powerful than anything they can put into a truck. However, has anyone ever heard of anyone even hinting that they’d actually allow a plane to take off and land by itself never mind without a pilot? Nope…me neither. If they can’t do that, how on earth can they realistically expect properly self-driving trucks to be more than a tax writeoff for the R&D dept.
History is littered with grand ideas for automated this and that, but from where I’m standing it’s taken 40 years to get an automated lawn mower that can in theory cut the grass without mowing down the local cats or destroying your flowerbeds, so not too sure even the 20 year olds will have to worry too much.
For those who think the world will be automated, look up old episodes of BBC Tomorrow’s World and see how many came to production.
Edit: Actually this could seriously mess with tachos as if you’re observing the road ready to take over, is that “driving mode” or “other work” since you’re technically not actually driving even if the wheels are turning? Could you even class it as POA since you’re technically double manning, albeit with the computer as primary driver?
So planes can land them selves, computers in planes can and have caused fatal problems in flight due to a failure in sensors feeding the computer, in a truck you would have seconds to to take over to avoid a possible serious problem.
3 qualified pilots for Air France had 6 minutes to save their plane from plunging into the sea from 37000 feet (flight AF447) with the loss of 228 lives due to sensor failure and a lot of pilot error, and yes, the plane and lives could have been saved if they hadn’t relied totaly on the computer, some drivers have problems with school boy errors now, god knows what carnage will be caused if they only have a split second to react!!
Think this is something that needs to be stopped in its tracks.
[quote=“weeto”
Think this is something that needs to be stopped in its tracks.[/quote]
Couldn’t agree more.
The more automation the less hands on practice and feel and actual driving has to be done, ie don’t change your own gears regularly to know the box intimately? as soon as snow comes or steep hill climbing fully loaded the vehicle grinds to a halt because the auto box (Volvo excepted) can’t cope and its utterly futile trying to learn how to drive the thing when the craps hit the fan, you need to know how everything feels, the exact revs and how many gears to drop for a given deceleration rate.
Anyone who was out the last few mornings in the thick fog can’t have failed to notice the number of new expensive/overrated German cars being driven round with no lights on (more than enough lorries on side light or default DRL’s too sadly), drivers reliant on the automatic lights doing their thing, quite apart from those with suicidal tendencies driving their non autolights grey cars round thismorning on the A43 with no lights at all…oh and another driver (don’t know what vehicle it was, i was southbound and there was wreckage and a wheel sitting on the northbound carriageway of the island, everyone stopped, ambulance in attendance) went straight up and bore left over the top of the roundabout again this morning at Evenley Island just south of Brackley, them damned islands can’t be trusted, keep jumping out in front of people.
Fast forward to auto pilot lorries, those sitting on their arses in auto lorries feet up in semi trance will not have a developed feel for the lorry and its foibles or the road nor conditions, so when error 404 comes up and all the alarms go off what hope has the startled attendant of sorting it out, none thats how much but he’ll be to blame.
Oh it’ll get the go ahead i have no doubt cos them £££ signs are swivelling in their eyes like a joke cartoon character, we’ll see what happens when the bodies and wreckage start to pile up and no driver to point the finger at with fully autonomous vehicles.
Maybe they’ll restrict all lorries to the inside lane only on multi lane roads to make survival chances for car drivers better when auto lorries go haywire.
shep532:
Interesting to read an article regarding autonomous trucks and a quote from Sven Ennerst (Head of Truck Product Engineering at Daimler) who says “If Daimler is right, it is the job of traffic planners that will go through even more of an upheaval than that of truck drivers”
He goes on to say “We expect a change in the organisation of the freight forwarding industry. The driver will take over many of the traffic planner’s functions. He will become more of a transport manager than a driver, from our point of view”
“The technology will help solve the current acute driver shortage problem. We expect to make the drivers job more attractive by making it more of a transport managers job”
With the above he is referring to the fact that whilst the truck drives along, the driver can be online planning jobs, quoting and taking on work. As he enters the jobs into his iPad the truck simply re-routes itself and everything is simple .
The delusional zb really thinks that ‘drivers’ decide to be ‘drivers’ because they’d actually rather be working in an office as a traffic planner.Not interacting using the combination of brain and body coordination with a vehicle ‘driving’ to different far off places over challenging topography.For a country that likes to think it’s uber alles it sure does seem to be able to turn out more than its fair share of absolute zbwits.
Juddian:
Fast forward to auto pilot lorries, those sitting on their arses in auto lorries feet up in semi trance will not have a developed feel for the lorry and its foibles or the road nor conditions, so when error 404 comes up and all the alarms go off what hope has the startled attendant of sorting it out, none thats how much but he’ll be to blame.
Oh it’ll get the go ahead i have no doubt cos them £££ signs are swivelling in their eyes like a joke cartoon character, we’ll see what happens when the bodies and wreckage start to pile up and no driver to point the finger at with fully autonomous vehicles.
Maybe they’ll restrict all lorries to the inside lane only on multi lane roads to make survival chances for car drivers better when auto lorries go haywire.
Picture the scene as the newly qualified ‘driver’ ( ex office ‘planner’ because the ex international demount drawbar trunk driver decided to walk away when they told him his skills as a driver are no longer needed so got a job driving a 360 excavator instead on a building site for better pay and less hours ).Finds himself in neutral with the brakes on fire going down the Brenner etc having lost the battle of frantically trying to make the computer put the thing into the right gear before it was too late.While shouting vorsprung durch technic down the phone,to the customer who he was previously dealing with about tomorrow’s job,in the hope that it might fix it.
Juddian:
Fast forward to auto pilot lorries, those sitting on their arses in auto lorries feet up in semi trance will not have a developed feel for the lorry and its foibles or the road nor conditions, so when error 404 comes up and all the alarms go off what hope has the startled attendant of sorting it out, none thats how much but he’ll be to blame.
Oh it’ll get the go ahead i have no doubt cos them £££ signs are swivelling in their eyes like a joke cartoon character, we’ll see what happens when the bodies and wreckage start to pile up and no driver to point the finger at with fully autonomous vehicles.
Maybe they’ll restrict all lorries to the inside lane only on multi lane roads to make survival chances for car drivers better when auto lorries go haywire.
Picture the scene as the newly qualified ‘driver’ ( ex office ‘planner’ because the ex international demount drawbar trunk driver decided to walk away when they told him his skills as a driver are no longer needed so got a job driving a 360 excavator instead on a building site for better pay and less hours ).Finds himself in neutral with the brakes on fire going down the Brenner etc having lost the battle of frantically trying to make the computer put the thing into the right gear before it was too late.While shouting vorsprung durch technic down the phone,to the customer who he was previously dealing with about tomorrow’s job,in the hope that it might fix it.
That’s about the top and bottom of it… vorsprung durch technic…thats a classic
shep532:
Interesting to read an article regarding autonomous trucks and a quote from Sven Ennerst (Head of Truck Product Engineering at Daimler) who says “If Daimler is right, it is the job of traffic planners that will go through even more of an upheaval than that of truck drivers”
He goes on to say “We expect a change in the organisation of the freight forwarding industry. The driver will take over many of the traffic planner’s functions. He will become more of a transport manager than a driver, from our point of view”
“The technology will help solve the current acute driver shortage problem. We expect to make the drivers job more attractive by making it more of a transport managers job”
With the above he is referring to the fact that whilst the truck drives along, the driver can be online planning jobs, quoting and taking on work. As he enters the jobs into his iPad the truck simply re-routes itself and everything is simple
Daimler expect to see cost savings for hauliers due to no longer requiring as many ‘planners’ or ‘managers’ as the manager moves to the drivers seat and runs the business as the truck drives. “A new breed of drivers with more technical skills”
The Dutch expect the first live platoons of vehicles to be used by hauliers by 2020 on their motorways - although they are only working on trials of 2 or 3 vehicles in a platoon at the moment. Daimler expect their current Future Truck 2025 to be live on the roads in Europe ‘sooner rather than later’.
It’s like the space race for HGVs
Daimler see the current Future Truck 2025 as seen on videos released last year as being 5% more fuel efficient due to less acceleration and braking and less waiting in traffic by removing the ‘human element’.
I think the forthcoming UK Budget may have some interesting items in it with regard to self driving trucks.
Well, Sven, can I have some of what you’re on, 'cos I think you’ve done too much blue sky thinking.
You’ll have us all doing Open University courses as well after we’ve finished our phone calls and spreadsheets.
shep532:
Interesting to read an article regarding autonomous trucks and a quote from Sven Ennerst (Head of Truck Product Engineering at Daimler) who says “If Daimler is right, it is the job of traffic planners that will go through even more of an upheaval than that of truck drivers”
He goes on to say “We expect a change in the organisation of the freight forwarding industry. The driver will take over many of the traffic planner’s functions. He will become more of a transport manager than a driver, from our point of view”
“The technology will help solve the current acute driver shortage problem. We expect to make the drivers job more attractive by making it more of a transport managers job”
With the above he is referring to the fact that whilst the truck drives along, the driver can be online planning jobs, quoting and taking on work. As he enters the jobs into his iPad the truck simply re-routes itself and everything is simple
Daimler expect to see cost savings for hauliers due to no longer requiring as many ‘planners’ or ‘managers’ as the manager moves to the drivers seat and runs the business as the truck drives. “A new breed of drivers with more technical skills”
The Dutch expect the first live platoons of vehicles to be used by hauliers by 2020 on their motorways - although they are only working on trials of 2 or 3 vehicles in a platoon at the moment. Daimler expect their current Future Truck 2025 to be live on the roads in Europe ‘sooner rather than later’.
It’s like the space race for HGVs
Daimler see the current Future Truck 2025 as seen on videos released last year as being 5% more fuel efficient due to less acceleration and braking and less waiting in traffic by removing the ‘human element’.
I think the forthcoming UK Budget may have some interesting items in it with regard to self driving trucks.
Well, Sven, can I have some of what you’re on, 'cos I think you’ve done too much blue sky thinking.
You’ll have us all doing Open University courses as well after we’ve finished our phone calls and spreadsheets.
- I don’t think what Sven is smoking is legal mate!
I can’t see how the driver/pilot of 1 truck is going to become involved in the logistic planning of a whole fleet. I can see that the planners or transport managers job being easier though, as he should get more information about exactly what is going on with the trucks. Well he/she will until the driver wants a toilet break, something to eat, to toss it off, or has a mechanical failure. Then I just see carnage with the finely tuned plans being thrown out of the window!
Also when these 10 trucks turn up an RDC, how is the driver (or now planner) going to know how long it’s going to take to tip his load?
I can’t really see anything changing, but it’s going to be entertaining watching it all turn to crap!
I’d like to think that when the truck is driving I’ll be able to have a bit of a break, but I’m not even sure that’s going to happen in the near future, as the moment the first truck screws up, we are going to have to hover over the controls watching like a hawk, ready to take over in a split second. That bit I’m not looking forward too, I’d rather just bloody drive it…
I would imagine in the days of steam trains where an engine was manned by 3 people all there to operate it, plus ticket people they’d never have thought it would change. Even in the days of ‘on the buses’ I doubt they’d have dreamt the driver would end up taking the fares, dealing with people with disabilities etc as well as driving.
Times are changing and these changes need to be viewed with a fresh outlook. I don’t believe an HGV will drive on our roads without a driver in my lifetime or even maybe my 5 year old Grandsons lifetime but I am sure it will happen. Meanwhile the driver will be there to take the blame etc
Until then a lot on this forum are young enough to look forward to this very advanced cruise control that you can occasionally use in the UK that’ll keep it in its lane, make sure you don’t hit the vehicle in front and react to vehicles around it. It’ll just be another tool to use.
Maybe had the artic in lane 2 of the M62 this morning had this kind of system he wouldn’t have drifted into lane 3 causing me to brake sharply as my front end was almost in line with his back doors. He did give me a friendly wave when I passed a few minutes later - what a nice chap. Of course we know this was a ‘non-event’ hardly worth mentioning
I must agree that the idea of ‘platooning’ does seem a bit silly for the UK and can’t understand why the Government is trialling this kind of thing rather than the likes of the Mercedes Highway Pilot that Germany are trialling. Our roads just aren’t right for platooning.
I think it is exciting times ahead for vehicles, and not just commercial vehicles. I’m about to road test an automatic motorbike. Full dual clutch technology where the bikes chooses and changes the gears much in the way a lot of HGVs do now. Most people on forums are slagging it off - even though they haven’t tried it. Whereas most magazines and reports suggest it IS better than a human in MOST cases. Isn’t technology great?
When the tech works well enough it will be the death knell for a to b manned trunking, but adaptive deliveries will always need a human. (or a cyborg from the 23rd century)
“One challenge would be to tackle the legal issue of responsibility when crashes occur - and whether the passenger should be liable, or, given that the computer was driving, the companies behind the software that failed.”
Technology isn’t the issue, the legalities of it is.
Could be an interesting one this. Google will no doubt go back to code to look at the algorithm for the manoeuvre. But it needs to consider the remote vehicle using it’s logic engine in expecting the other vehicle to yield may have come across a dodgy emotion engine used by the human driver.
For arse covering purposes they will need to look at how someone deliberately closing a gap so as not to let another vehicle in renders the gap closer liable or remote cars will just end up driving around like ■■■■■■■ giving way to everything increasing congestion.
Leading back to the usual dilemma most drivers have. Balancing having priority with not driving like a ■■■■.
Dipper_Dave:
Could be an interesting one this. Google will no doubt go back to code to look at the algorithm for the manoeuvre. But it needs to consider the remote vehicle using it’s logic engine in expecting the other vehicle to yield may have come across a dodgy emotion engine used by the human driver.
For arse covering purposes they will need to look at how someone deliberately closing a gap so as not to let another vehicle in renders the gap closer liable or remote cars will just end up driving around like ■■■■■■■ giving way to everything increasing congestion.
Leading back to the usual dilemma most drivers have. Balancing having priority with not driving like a ■■■■.
Of course when all vehicles on the road are all communicating with each other we will be able to let the vehicles drive closer together and the issues you talk about will no longer exist as humans will not be a factor. Might just be a few years off yet. But of course that is what this platooning is all about.
