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The Physics and Economics of Moving 44 Tonnes at 56mph

mikeayles.com

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Re: The Physics and Economics of Moving 44 Tonnes at 56mph

#121

Post by rluna828 »

toss1 wrote: post #78
dmurray wrote: post #8

> At 0.5 mph differential, the overtake takes 291 seconds — over a minute of blocking the outside lane. Annoying, but it gains the driver 5.0 extra miles across a working day. The driver gets there 5 minutes earlier in exchange for causing a 7-km tailback multiple times per day? That seems like exactly the kind of thing that should be regulated away: the truck in front is limited to 90 km/h, you're limited to 90 km/h…

>>That seems like exactly the kind of thing that should be regulated away Yes, and the regulation should NOT be limiting passing or requiring the slower truck to brake It should allow a "Push To Pass" button that allows a 10mph boost for enough seconds to make a pass in a reasonable amount of distance so as to not create problems for other traffic. Current technology would allow these to be easily limited to X uses p…

Using GPS to calibrate speedometers would solve this problem with fewer steps. GPS speedometers are accurate to 0.1 km/h.

Re: The Physics and Economics of Moving 44 Tonnes at 56mph

#122

Post by toss1 »

rluna828 wrote: post #121
toss1 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>That seems like exactly the kind of thing that should be regulated away Yes, and the regulation should NOT be limiting passing or requiring the slower truck to brake It should allow a "Push To Pass" button that allows a 10mph boost for enough seconds to make a pass in a reasonable amount of distance so as to not create problems for other traffic. Current technology would allow these to be easily limited to X uses p…

Using GPS to calibrate speedometers would solve this problem with fewer steps. GPS speedometers are accurate to 0.1 km/h.

That's no solution at all, and the tech is barely even lower than a passing option — both require detailed speed & time measurement, and having gps throttle governing 100% of the time is subject to all kinds of new issues where GPS isn't fully functioning, e.g., in dense trees, tunnels, cities....

And as to passing, the closer the two vehicles are in speed the loooonger it takes one to pass the other. Unless you get down to an absurd accuracy, one driver will notice he's got a little bit of pace on the other guy and will try to pass. And even with 0.0001% accuracy and 100% uptime (not going to happen), there will still be passing issues as some trucks may have issues where they aren't quite up to speed, but just a few km/hr under, and you're right back to the long passes.

Either outlaw passing, or allow it to happen at a reasonable pace.

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