Innovation: Continuous Convoys and En Route Sequencing

Story: While riding the train from Long Branch to New York City, I was annoyed with all the stops along the way. Some of the time I gained by not driving and being stuck in traffic, I spent thinking of different ways to make the trip faster and more efficient. I imagined a wide variety of schemes, including: enclosing the tracks, building a second level above the tracks for high-speed vehicles, and so on. My thinking stuck in the form of the existing trains: an engine pulling a dozen cars. After several years of interesting, but fruitless, ideas, it suddenly hit me that if I just made each car an Autonomous Vehicle, there are many new possibilities.

Follow a similar approach to freight trains: connect many vehicles together into a “Convoy” of Autonomous Vehicles. As you saw before, having a long Convoy of vehicles is much more aerodynamically efficient than separate vehicles. 

One of the efficiency challenges of conventional trains is that the whole train stops at each station. This slows down the everything that isn’t exiting at that station, and is also less efficient because of the mass of vehicles stopped and then reaccelerated needlessly.

To achieve the advantages of non-stop service, while also providing many intermediate stops, we have invented, what we believe is a new approach to fast, efficient transportation.

Innovation: Continuous Convoys

We call these Continuous Convoys because the Convoy as a whole never stops (except at the end of the A-Way), only individual vehicles stop. As the Convoy approaches a Stop, the last Vehicle in the Convoy (A) detaches from the Convoy and decelerates to arrive at the Stop. The other Vehicles in the Convoy (B-D) continue at normal speed.

Simultaneously, as the Convoy approaches the Stop, the Vehicle waiting at the Stop (E), accelerates to join the front of the Convoy.

The next diagram shows two consecutive Convoys passing through the Stop. Note that Vehicle A, which was the last Vehicle in the first Convoy, and stopped at the Stop, joins the front of the second Convoy.

You have probably noticed a challenge with this approach: if you want to get off at a Stop, you have to be in the last Vehicle in the Convoy.

Innovation: Continuous Convoys and En Route Sequencing   

The solution to this challenge is to have people, and other loads, within the Convoy Vehicles move to the appropriate Vehicle for their Stop – we call this Continuous Convoys and En Route Sequencing.

As the Convoy approaches a Stop, everything destined for that Stop is in the last Vehicle in the Convoy (Stop 1, Purple in the diagram). At the appropriate time, the last Vehicle detaches from the Convoy and decelerates to arrive at the Stop, and the loads exit. The other Vehicles in the Convoy continue at normal speed.

Simultaneously, as the Convoy approaches the Stop, there may be a Vehicle waiting at the Stop, carrying loads for various Stops ahead. At the appropriate time, this Vehicle accelerates to join the front of the Convoy.

Once this Vehicle has connected to the front of the Convoy, the contents of this Vehicle move to the Vehicle destined to go to their particular destination (Stop 2, Blue; Stop 3, Green; Stop 4, Orange; Stop 5, Red) – we call this En Route Sequencing.

Multi-Layer Nesting and En Route Sequencing

We showed smaller Autonomous Vehicles inside other larger Autonomous Vehicles in the diagram of Nesting. These smaller Vehicles can also use En Route Sequencing inside the larger Vehicles; then the larger Vehicles use En Route Sequencing inside the Continuous Convoy Vehicles, so that everything arrives at the proper Stop.

Autonomous Vehicles at Work – Delivering Fruit & Vegetables

Let’s follow the rest of Tanya’s tomatoes, and Greg’s green peppers too, while we’re at it. They were all picked up by the same Autonomous Vehicle going down the street toward the high-speed A-Way. Let’s say that the nearest high-speed A-Way runs North/South.

Assume that 2 of Tanya’s tomatoes are going North and 2 South. And the same for Greg’s green peppers, 8 North and 8 South. So the Fruit Containers need to be split and loaded onto a Northbound Autonomous Vehicle and a Southbound Autonomous Vehicle.

Of course these Autonomous Vehicles aren’t equipped to go on a high speed A-Way, so they need to be loaded onto larger Autonomous Vehicles, which I’ve called Continuous Convoy Vehicles that are designed for this high-speed A-Way. Note that we have room for a lot of Fruit Containers on this Convoy Vehicle – I’ll talk more about this later.

This Convoy Vehicle is going to accelerate so it can link in at the front of the approaching Convoy. This is the diagram I’ve used before to show the process, but we’ll go into more detail now.

Now let’s think about how En Route Sequencing is going to work in this example. Let’s assume that 1 of Tanya’s northbound tomatoes is going to the next station, along with 1 of Greg’s green peppers.

As soon as the Convoy Vehicle links with the Convoy, that tomato and green pepper need to speed back to the last Convoy Vehicle which is soon going to decouple from the Convoy and decelerate to stop at the next station. This means that that tomato and green pepper need to be in an Autonomous Vehicle that only has Containers destined for that next station. And that Autonomous Vehicle must be at the back of the Convoy Vehicle so it can race back through to the last Convoy Vehicle without any interference from other Autonomous Vehicles.

While the Convoy Vehicle is slowing down, unless that tomato and green pepper are going to destinations on the same route, they need to move to different Autonomous Vehicles so they can be delivered quickly.

Once the Autonomous Vehicles carrying that tomato and green pepper get off the Convoy Vehicle at the next station, they may even move through other Autonomous Vehicle before being delivered to their respective destinations, similar to how Fran received her tomato. And it’s only 4:45 pm, so they are in good time for dinner, as ordered.

Similarly, if one of Greg’s green peppers is going to the station after the next station, it needs to be in an Autonomous Vehicle going to that station, and needs to be just behind those Autonomous Vehicles going to the last Convoy Vehicle, because it doesn’t have a lot more time to get to the next to the last Convoy Vehicle.

The remaining tomatoes and green peppers have more time to get to the Convoy Vehicle that will stop at their station. So we can expect an intricate dance of Autonomous Vehicles moving among Convoy Vehicles, and Fruit Containers moving among Autonomous Vehicles, each one on an efficient route to its final destination.

One additional challenge, depending on the distance to the next station, the speed of the Convoy, and the deceleration rate of the Convoy Vehicle, that last Convoy Vehicle may detach from the Convoy before the Autonomous Vehicle with Tanya’s tomato and Greg’s green pepper could make it there. In this case, they shouldn’t get on the high-speed A-Way at all, but need to find a local route, perhaps using a slower A-Way.