Caravan the Project Rosavtodor on development of transportations by pilotless transport

The project on development of transportations by pilotless Caravan transport is developed by Federal Road Agency since the beginning of 2016. In its basis it is going to put experience of the Finnish road builders who actively test now for territories Lapland Route for machines UAVs. According to the arrangement, further foreign partners will transfer to Rosavtodor for the analysis all work and project documentation on the basis of which requirements for creation of the corresponding infrastructure in the territory of our country will be studied.

At the end of 2016 the Federal agency Rosavtodor included Traft transport company as industry experts in the federal Caravan project on development of technical base and infrastructure for development of pilotless transport in the territory of the Russian Federation. Within interdepartmental cooperation experts of Traft will take part in development of uniform technical standards in the field of the movement of cars with an auto pilot. Further the given standards will be distributed to all federal highways of the country.

At the beginning of December Traft organized an open competition and announced the beginning of order taking from domestic and western car makers and IT developer for implementation in cargo transport of the vehicle fleet of hardware and technical complexes for pilotless management. Since 2017 the Traft company is going to begin use of unmanned vehicles on the Russian routes. It will allow to save on fuel and depreciation, besides will make transportations safer. The initiative of the company taking into account its detailed study was mentioned by Rosavtodor as Traft at the moment is transport company in Russia and the CIS which started an active stage of mastering of technologies of pilotless transport in actual practice. According to experts of road department, the public-private partnership and exchange of experience with the international developers of the transport systems will allow Traft company quicker and more qualitatively to implement at itself the first pilotless trucks that will positively affect development of all domestic industry of cargo transportation which will follow the example of the company.

The central office Traft reported that on the first test stage of the pilotless systems it is supposed to involve five – ten 20-ton trucks which once a month will make runs from the capital to St. Petersburg, Krasnodar and Yekaterinburg and also to other million-plus cities. Further the company is going to convert 40 lorries. Re-equipment of one car taking into account the cost of the necessary equipment is estimated today approximately at 250 - 300 thousand rubles, however these data can change depending on the used technical solutions. For security in a cabin during run there will be a driver, however his function will consist not in driving, and in control of this process. Pilotless trucks will transport loads of different types, except for loads of the increased danger. For the purpose of security of all participants of traffic UAVs will go on the routes equipped with chippers for separation of counter flows of cars.

The head of Rosavtodor Roman Starovoyt at a meeting with representatives of the market of cargo transportation noted that according to forecasts of analysts by 2020 there will be more than 10 million pilotless vehicles worldwide. By this time the main federal roads in Russia will also be prepared for journey of such transport. One of the first sections for testing of pilotless automobile transportations on federal highways will be created on the highway Kazan – Naberezhnye Chelny and further will extend to all transport corridors.

See Also: Auto pilot (unmanned vehicle)

The president of The Movement without Danger Expert center, the deputy chairman of Public council at the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation Natalya Agre also emphasizes that use of UAVs will improve a situation on roads. According to The Movement without Danger center, the reason of 85% of road accident – a human factor. Unlike a segment of cars, the number of accidents with participation of trucks in Russia does not decrease. "There can be problems connected with failure of the equipment, but the machine works more correctly, than the person: does not distract, is not tired, does not violate the rule. It is much better if cargo vehicles are controlled more steadily. The same practice is tested also in other countries of the world, including in the USA. It enters a big distemper because long-distance truck drivers are afraid to lose places. But if to consider the fact that freight transportation will be organized on very long distances and the driver is tired and loses concentration, then technology intervention will be much more effective on security", - Natalya Agre explained.