Road train project could take the sweat and tears out of driving

Contrary to what the media savvy advertisers trying to push all kinds of vehicles would have you believe driving can often be a far cry from the near nirvana experience they conjure to lure you with.

And driving to work can at times be a psychological torture waiting at traffic signals and ending up in snarls, leaving you wondering whether taking the subway or the metro would not be such a bad idea after all.

Of course, you can lessen the pain and the stress if you can fork out the cash for the privilege of having someone else take over the tough part of the commute to reach you to your destination in comfort if not in luxury. But if researchers working on the SARTRE project are to be believed even the liveried chauffeur driven commute could become passé.

The SARTRE (Safe Road Trains for the Environment) project envisages a networked, coordinated and automated approach to driving with vehicles linking up to move about in convoys to reduce traffic jams, free up road space and generally deliver driving utopia to the harried driver, who will virtually get to hitch a hike to his

At the heart of the SARTRE approach is what automakers have been working on for a long time – autonomous driving. Autonomous driving allows vehicles to take control over acceleration, braking and steering to enable them to be used as part of a road train of similarly controlled vehicles.