Please join us in watching the slow but sure computerizing of the human driving
function at the free Yahoo group: 
CitizensForComputerizingCars-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Autotrains (auto-trains, auto trains) consisting of consumer owned, driverless
cars traversing a publicly owned, automated highway system are the future of   
America's ground transportation system.  Because of the publicly owned          
highways, the government must take a key leadership role in making this           
desirable future happen.

           
        ________________________________________________________


Keith L. Eshelman
110 Fourth Ave. NW
Lutz, Florida  33548-4236
(813)949-7583
 Keith_L_Eshelman@juno.com 

July 4, 2007

Re:  Modernizing America’s Ground Transportation System - Autotrains 

Dear American Citizen:

In consideration of the need for our country to cut down on oil consumption, reduce automobile traffic
fatalities and injuries, cut driving times, preserve the environment, lower travel costs, and eliminate
traffic gridlocks while tripling the throughput of our current roadways, I am enclosing the following
essay:  I have a Vision!  The Future of Automobile Travel:  Autotrains.

I hope you will read it carefully.  Please try to allow your imagination to travel into the future and see
American life in a technologically advanced state.  To help do this, please think back about how things
were fifty, one hundred, and two hundred years ago.  In those olden days, a futuristic description of
jumbo jet worldwide airplane travel, cellular telephone communications, and personal computers on
the internet would have sounded futuristic and impossible to develop.   

I believe a federally sponsored project to develop and demonstrate a consumer's self-driving car is
desirable. I believe its demonstration on a test track could be accomplished within three years. I
believe within four years after demonstrating the self-driving car, that several self-driving cars, running
together as an autotrain, could be developed and demonstrated.  Once the test track autotrain is
demonstrated to the public, a pilot production project should be commenced which would result in the
first introduction and public trials of autotrains.  For the first public trials, one or several expressways in
one populated area should be chosen to be the first to receive the new autotrains technology.  Once
fully proven, the area's other expressways would be phased in incrementally.  Improvements of
autotrains would occur as each decade passes and eventually arterial roads would also support
autotrains. 

As a leader and representative and forward thinking individual, I hope you will first consider and then
promote this vision of the future of automobile travel.  Your leadership would certainly benefit the
entire nation.  Please feel free to pass on or print the enclosed essay.  Please contact me if there is
anything more I can do to help spread the vision of autotrains.
 

Very Sincerely,

Keith L. Eshelman
Electrical Engineer

Enclosure:

Enclosure available at http://www.math6.com/Autotrains.htm
 

       ________________________________________________________


                                                  
                                                      I Have a Vision!

                                       The Future of Automobile Travel:

                                                         Autotrains

Over four score and nineteen years ago, a great American delivered  a newly powered carriage
from a moving assembly line.  It was a carriage without horses; a carriage powered by an
engine that could be turned on and off.  Any American with good wages could own an
automobile and enjoy the amazing freedom of mobility.  It was a new beginning for
transportation advancement.  As the years went by, V8 engines, automatic transmissions, air
conditioning, 100,000 mile tune-ups, and much more were all developed.  Roadways received
traffic signals, route numbering, smooth paving, and paint stripes.  Eventually limited access
highways were constructed. And Americans grew to love their automobiles.

During the one hundred years of automobile and roadway advancement, Americans have
enjoyed the invention and growth of other technological products.  These include cellular
telephones, airplanes, radios, televisions, computers, micro-electronic chips, global positioning
devices and satellites, the internet, spacecraft and others.  The various advanced technologies
used in these products can now be converged with the automobile and roadway to initiate a
great new future for ground transportation!  I have a vision that the future of our automobile
travel will involve a quantum leap forward in travel efficiency and safety.

I have a vision that one day all cars will have programmed drivecomputers that assist in
delivering their occupants to their destinations with unparalleled safety and speed.  These
drivecomputers will take their driver’s instructions with push button ease. Drivecomputers
always know the location of their car and nearby cars.  Drivecomputers guide their cars
flawlessly to both frequent and first time destinations.

I have a vision that these drivecomputers will allow my automobile to join up with many other
automobiles into an autotrain.  That these autotrains, with dozens of cars running bumpers
touching bumpers, will travel great distances at high speeds with coordinated traffic signals.
The autotrains will allow cars to join or cars to separate from the autotrain without the autotrain
stopping or slowing down.

I have a vision that one day towards the beginning of my road trip, I accelerate my car in  the
manual lane up to the side of a moving autotrain that is moving at seventy miles per hour.  I
push a button and under the drivecomputers’ control, my car merges and joins the autotrain as
the last car.  Once I have joined the autotrain, the drivecomputers do all the driving.  I relax and
read a newspaper.  As we travel along, other cars join the autotrain behind me and cars from
within the autotrain separate and leave the autotrain.  And on that day after traveling a great
distance within that autotrain, the drivecomputer alerts me to the approach of my exit.  Soon
after, the moving autotrain under the drivecomputers’ control separates slightly and my car
removes itself into the adjacent manual lane.  The moving autotrain then closes column without
me and continues on while I assume manual control of my car and complete the final few blocks
of my trip.

I have a vision that the compression of cars into autotrains will dramatically increase the traffic
throughput of our current roadways.  That the increased throughput made possible by
autotrains will eliminate wasteful traffic jams.  The elimination of wasteful stopping along with the
drafting effect of cars running bumpers touching bumpers will double our miles per gallon
efficiency.  The error free control of autotrains by their drivecomputers will dramatically reduce
our forty thousand plus traffic fatalities per year.  Through autotrains, our mobility will be faster,
more fuel and roadway efficient, safer, and more environmentally friendly.

So how do we get started with these autotrains?  By embracing this vision of the future!

So,
· Let the people know of this vision.
· Let the elected representatives know of this vision.
· Let the political candidates know of this vision.
· Let the corporate executives know of this vision.

America!  Let your engineers go!  Let your engineers design and demonstrate!  Let your
engineers prove and perfect!

Let the federal government and industry partner on the research and development of autotrains
and the new national standards for autotrains/ drivecomputers/ roadways.  Let the people
through their state and local governments plan for the phased introduction of their autotrains/
drivecomputers/ roadways system.

And when this happens, when autotrains are in every village and every hamlet, in every state
and every city, we will be more mobile than ever.  More mobile than ever!

Keith Lee Eshelman
Electrical Engineer
Lutz, Florida
2007

 

References and Links:

 http://www.math6.com/Autotrains.htm Online location of this document.

 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/escape/piocar.html Nova Online Article:  Pioneers of Survival,
CAR.  Interview of Chuck Thorpe of Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, expert on
automated cars and highways

 http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/july97/demo97.htm  Article: Demo '97: Proving AHS Works United
States Department of Transportation - Federal Highway Administration web site/

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0306454696 Book: Automated Highway Systems by Petros
Ioannou.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/driverless_car  Reference the article by scrolling down to Automated
Highway Systems

 http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/summer94/p94su1.htm Article:The Automated Highway System:  An
Idea Whose Time Has Come by Nita Congress

 http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans  Click on Automated Highway Systems for further links.

http://www.ivsource.net/ Website:  IVsource: the source for intelligent vehicle news.

 http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Vehicle-Technology-Trends-
Library/dp/1580539114/ref=sr_1_1/104-2110487-
3052755?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1183408394&sr=8-1 Book: Intelligent Vehicle Technology And
Trends by Richard Bishop available at www.Amazon.com 

 http://www.govtech.com/gt/articles/95445  Article:  Where the Research Meets the Road: Automated
Highway Passes the Test

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darpa_grand_challenge  Article on the United States Department of
Defense Driverless Car Competition.

Google:  Automated Highway System, Driverless Car

Are there other links that should be referenced here?  Let me know by e-mail at
Keith_L_Eshelman@juno.com  Keith_L_Eshelman@juno.com