During the 2019 Session, the Legislature passed House Bill 1068, which opens the door for truck platooning, a tight convoy of vehicles whose speed is controlled wirelessly by the lead vehicle. With the gas and brake pedals in all of the following trucks controlled by computer, truckers can reduce their following distance from 500 or more feet to 30 to 50 feet, basically a truck length. The industry and technology testers say that running trucks at coordinated speeds and closer-than-usual distances—basically drafting, just like race cars and bicycles and runners—saves fuel and increases safety.
The South Dakota Department of Transportation is now proposing the rules necessary to put truck platoons on the road. The proposed rules are cautious: they limit platooning to two trucks with no more than a single trailer each. Commercial motor carriers will have to pay $60 a year for a special fleet platooning permit; government vehicles will be exempt from that permit requirement. Platooners will have to document for each vehicle the number of trips and miles platooned, routes where they platoon, and any crashes. Platooning will be allowed only on the Interstates; no platooning will be allowed during the Sturgis Rally from Box Elder (mile post 67) to the Wyoming border. Truckers will have to switch off their platoon gear if visibility drops below a half-mile; if the road is slippery from snow, ice, slush, or frost; or if they encounter road work or reduced speed zones (hmm: if computers can react more quickly than humans on clear days and dry roads, can’t they outperform humans in suboptimal conditions, too?).
Bob Mercer gets Transportation Secretary Darin Bergquist to explain the merits of platooning on South Dakota Interstates:
Truck freight efficiency is particularly important in South Dakota, because of the typically longer distances to markets and points of production. If the proposed platooning rules are adopted, the reduction in following distance that will be allowed is equivalent to the distance the second vehicle is expected to travel during the estimated time the driver is likely to recognize the need to stop and react to apply the brakes.
Because the rules require platooning vehicles to electronically coordinate speeds and distances, the necessary computer system coupling the two trucks should avoid the difficulties associated with human error, such as an inattentive driver in the second vehicle who may react very late [DOT Sec. Darin Bergquist, in Bob Mercer, “S.D. Transportation Secretary Answers Questions About Trucking-Rules Proposals,” KELO-TV, 2019.10.07].
As I mentioned, the new platooning rules appear to apply only to single-trailer vehicles. But long-combination vehicles (LCVs) are getting their own rules treat: DOT wants to authorize multi-trailer trucks on five major routes in South Dakota (see also Mercer’s map from DOT):
- SD Highway 79 from Rapid City down to Oelrichs, with the spur on US 18 to Hot Springs;
- US 212 from Belle Fourche northwest to the Wyoming border;
- US 12 from the North Dakota border west of Lemmon all the way east to I-29 at Summit;
- US 83 from North Dakota down to Pierre and on south to I-90;
- US 281 from Aberdeen down to the turn east to Huron on US 14 (that empty stretch of 281 from that turn-off to Huron down to I-90 is already LCV-authorized);
- US 14 from that 281/Huron turn-off to Pierre (we already allow LCVs on 14 from that Huron turn-off east to I-29 at Brookings);
- SD 37 from Huron to Mitchell.
DOT is taking public comment on the LCV expansion and platooning online through October 21; these rules get a public hearing before the Transportation Commission in Pierre on October 24.
Hmmmmm ….. computer assisted tailgating. What could possibly go wrong??
I drove big rigs for ten years. A question. If you have to stop platooning because the road gets icy, what do you do with the rear tractor and trailer? Leave it on the shoulder? Or, is there a driver in each platooned rig? Or, is there another driver in the lead rig? Or, do you look at weather reports and not attempt to platoon in the weathers iffy?
I’d get a kick out of driving with five rigs in tow. Big time!!
OK … maybe I’m missing something. Is there a driver in each tractor/trailer? If so, what an incredibly bad job. Sitting fifty feet behind the ass end of a trailer, trying to steer? Just because the owner thinks you can’t drive as efficiently as a computer? Remember the joke about the view never changes if you’re not the lead dog? Prediction … the rear drivers doze off.
Porter, every truck still has a driver. These rules don’t authorize any driverless vehicles. But yes, we are allowing some automated control… and the head of Daimler Trucks says platooning could indeed lead to drivers sleeping in shifts while the convoy rolls around the clock:
(Trucks.com—good grief, why didn’t I buy that domain name in the 1990s?)
If the driver in the following truck can sleep then that driver is unnecessary. Thus … union busting tactic. ( Never trust an owner! )
On second thought, truckers have been recognized for a long time as a job that won’t be around long. So are teachers, doctors, and lawyers. Computers can teach, diagnose, and litigate just fine. What job won’t be displaced? Easy. Innovator. We’ll always value an entrepreneur who has a knack for new ideas. Too bad, SD doesn’t emphasize that skill, during formative education. Being in the bottom five states for innovation skills is pitiful. There’re some smart kids in SD, until they leave for states that value innovation thinkers. Work on that, legislature. Or … do you just want more shallow thinking Republicans, that are easily distracted? People who don’t pay attention to politics until three weeks out?
Ah, but Porter, they have to have a man in the truck under the current law. Platooning may be a step toward automated trucks, at which point we’ll get rid of all drivers, but this rule itself keeps drivers in each vehicle.
Besides, the convoys Daum envisions can’t all be going to the same destination.A shipper could organize a Chicago–Seattle convoy, multiple trucks all headed the same way and swapping shifts, but each truck would still have a driver to get the truck from its origin warehouse in Chicago out to the convoy rolling rendezvous west of the city on the freeway. They’d ride together all the way to the West Coast, then split up to their individual destinations.
In Australia they have “road trains” in the Outback area. That’s one tractor pulling up to 5 trailers. Yes, that one tractor has a hella-big-engine. They’re built especially for Australia.
The multi-trailer outfits need a sign front and back noting how many trailers there are. I’ve pulled out to pass a semi only to discover my comfortable cushion of space ain’t so comfy after all, because there are 2 trailers. That’s not a pleasant or safe experience.
I was wrong about the road trains. They can be longer than 5 trailers. Apparently the longest one operating now is 6 trailers. The zinc mining company that owns and operates it has plans to go bigger.
https://youtu.be/0iFkKRh5kcM
Search “Australian Road Trains” on YouTube to see more of them.
If we’re going to make road trains, why not just take regular trains?
I’d be curious to see how the numbers compare for building and maintaining paved roads under such loads and building and maintaining rail lines.