Re:Self-driving truck convoy completes its first major journ...
by revelation on Saturday April 09, 2016 @09:26AM
(#11461120)
Fuel consumption is about the last thing you want to bring to the fore when comparing trucks to trains. You could take all the diesel in a truck, burn it in a oil power plant and use the generated electricity to power a train. You would go much further.
Re:Self-driving truck convoy completes its first major journ...
by chinathrow on Saturday April 09, 2016 @09:37AM
(#11461154)
I only compared the ability of those truck platoons to re-group dynamically to those of trains.
What the mentioned platooning achieves though, is rapid re-grouping once a truck joins or leaves the platoon. Imagine that you save 10-20% of fuel within a platoon (as pointed out in the article), then precise scheduling entering the highway at the right time makes suddenly sense.
Trains can't do that with the same flexibility.