Blog of RENAULT NISSAN Alliance

While the Alliance develops autonomous cars based on the all-electric Renault ZOE and the best-selling Nissan LEAF – expect them to come to market by 2020 – scientists in America are investigating what real world benefits driverless cars will provide.

One research program being undertaken by Temple University in Philadelphia is looking at how these vehicles might consign the traffic jam to the history books and reduce fuel consumption at the same time.

And now the three-year program has been given a major boost by the US National Science Foundation which has awarded a $1 million (€785,000) grant to a team led by Temple’s Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Benjamin Seibold.

 “These vehicles collect a lot of data about the environment around them in order to operate safely and, in principle, this data can be communicated from one vehicle to another,” Professor Seibold said.

Significantly, the information could be sent to nearby drivers even if they were in non-autonomous cars… though they would have to change their own driving behavior rather than have the car slow down automatically.

“Traffic that’s about to run into a jam could be slowed down by these autonomous vehicles in a subtle way – perhaps by just two miles an hour under the speed limit – so that it’s not a nuisance to the others. This could then help dissipate stop-and-go waves in the traffic flow and prevent prolonging the traffic jam ahead.”

By keeping the traffic flowing, even at a reduced speed, the cars will use less fuel. “Reducing consumption by just 0.1% would have a tremendous economic and environmental impact,” said the professor.

Read more from the press release here.