A recent study completed by the University of Missouri and reported on by the AASHTO Journal found that using a self-driving truck to follow a crewed vehicle has the potential to reduce worker injuries in highway work zones.
Henry Brown, a research engineer in the school’s civil and environmental engineering department, presented the study’s findings to the Missouri Department of Transportation.
He noted that so-called “moving work zones” on highways–operations that include activities such as pavement striping–typically involve a series of vehicles, with the last truck at most risk of being in a wreck.
Brown also noted that MoDOT uses truck-mounted “crash cushions,” known as truck mounted attenuators or TMAs, positioned at the end of mobile work zones to absorb the impact of a potential crash.
The University of Missouri’s study found, though, if the vehicle equipped with the TMA is a self-driving truck, more injuries could be avoided.
“We want to eliminate worker injury by getting the driver out of the last vehicle,” Brown said. “The idea is you pair the last two vehicles as a leader and a follower retrofitted with kits that allow the second vehicle to follow GPS crumbs from the vehicle in front of it.”
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Source: AASHTO Journal
