Skip to main content

Road train project enters final phase

The Sartre (Safe Road Trains for the Environment) project, funded by the European Union, has completed initial test demonstrations of a multiple vehicle platoon. The test fleet included a lead truck followed by three cars driven entirely autonomously at speeds of up to 90 km/h (57mph) – with no more than 6m between the vehicles. The project is being driven by seven European partners and is the only one of its kind to focus on the development of technology that can be implemented on conventional highways in
June 25, 2012 Read time: 1 min
The 574 SARTRE (Safe Road Trains for the Environment) project, funded by the 1816 European Union, has completed initial test demonstrations of a multiple vehicle platoon. The test fleet included a lead truck followed by three cars driven entirely autonomously at speeds of up to 90 km/h (57mph) – with no more than 6m between the vehicles. The project is being driven by seven European partners and is the only one of its kind to focus on the development of technology that can be implemented on conventional highways in which platooned traffic operates in a mixed environment with other road users.

Related Content

  • April 16, 2020
    Hyperloop: from sci-fi to transport policy
    The future is here. While it has long looked like something from a sci-fi movie, Graham Anderson investigates a technology whose time might have come.
  • February 11, 2015
    First trial of driverless vehicles, regulatory review launched
    The first trial of driverless cars is launched today in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, London. The Greenwich Automated Transport Environment project (GATEway) is one of three projects chosen by the Government to deliver demonstrations of automated vehicles in urban environments. The trial officially gets underway at Greenwich Peninsula today, attended by Business Secretary Vince Cable and Transport Minister Claire Perry, who also officially launched a regulatory review and the UK Government’s ‘Intro
  • March 20, 2014
    Adaptive cruise control would suppress traffic instability
    Professor Berthold Horn of Massachusetts Institute of Technology believes a modified adaptive cruise control could mitigate phantom traffic jamsthat occur for no apparent reason. The phenomenon of the phantom traffic jam is all too common: they appear for no apparent reason and, having caused frustrating delays for all travelers, evaporate for an equally mystical reason. Phantom traffic jams usually occur on busy highways and often take the form of repeatedly stopping and then accelerating up to near the
  • October 22, 2014
    Using electricity to power road freight
    Next year sees the start of the first real-life electrified road system for transporting freight. Worldwide freight transportation is predicted to double by 2050 but despite expansion of global rail infrastructure only one third of this additional freight transport can be handled by trains. This means that the largest proportion of freight transport will continue to be by road and as a result, experts expect global CO2 emissions from road freight traffic to more than double by 2050.