Author Topic: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem  (Read 31029 times)

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Offline frozenfrogz

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #100 on: January 09, 2018, 08:20:23 pm »
Self-driving cars would probably screw up here as well.
No they won't. If the map says they won't fit. They won't drive there.

Where is this map you speak of that knows all bridge/overpass heights? I only know of GPS maps containing altitude data.

Professional GPS assistance systems have this. You will setup your truck specifications (or better the dispatcher will do so), when uploading the tour/route information. However, these systems are expensive and a lot of smartypants are using home entertainment style GPS devices to save money. Professional systems also give tracking data back to the dispatcher and have two way communication over mobile network. That way, the route can be updated remotely in case of time schedule changes or because of traffic.
He’s like a trained ape. Without the training.
 
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Offline Gyro

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #101 on: January 09, 2018, 08:28:14 pm »
Quote
However, these systems are expensive and a lot of smartypants are using home entertainment style GPS devices to save money.

Yes, we have problems with that in the UK too, Heavy lorries getting jammed between houses scenic little villages because the drivers are using cheap 'car' GPSs. Occasionally they have to be craned out. There are lots of 'Unsuitable for... GPS divert' type of signs these days.  It's not just bridges that suffer.
Best Regards, Chris
 
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Offline floobydust

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #102 on: January 09, 2018, 08:37:55 pm »
You can't simply lower the road, because that is part of the rail bridge's support.  It would result in redesigning the rail bridge, its concrete foundations at least would have to be replaced. And, how long a trailer do you design for? You'd  have to lower the road quite far out on either side.

I'd be curious what the damaged vehicle and bridge repair costs are over the years, the insurance payouts.
I think this bridge problem is just nobody wanting to spend the money and fix it.
 
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Offline Someone

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #103 on: January 09, 2018, 08:51:09 pm »
Self-driving cars would probably screw up here as well.
No they won't. If the map says they won't fit. They won't drive there.
Where is this map you speak of that knows all bridge/overpass heights? I only know of GPS maps containing altitude data.
Such maps exist in the heavy vehicle industry but they are expensive, we can assume that with the high volumes expected of autonomous cars they can afford to include such detailed data for their own use.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #104 on: January 09, 2018, 09:39:39 pm »
Personally I expect fully autonomous cars are about 20 years behind where most of the enthusiastic backers think they are. It's true that Google has driven thousands and thousands of miles, but this is mostly over the same few miles of extremely well documented routes. The days of computers doing a sensible job of interacting with human drivers and the unexpected is still a long way off. Look at how difficult it is for a computer to positively identify spam email, something an average human can do at a glance with probably better than 99% success rate. Google in particular has gotten pretty good at this but still gets false positives or lets spam through to my inbox occasionally and that task is orders of magnitude simpler than driving a car. I'm not saying it won't happen, but there will be kinks to work out, both expected and likely some completely unforeseen. I suspect that enthusiasm and hubris will lead to a rushed deployment and there will be several highly publicized incidents in which a number of people are killed and that will be a setback. Time will tell.
 

Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #105 on: January 09, 2018, 09:45:42 pm »
Personally I expect fully autonomous cars are about 20 years behind where most of the enthusiastic backers think they are. It's true that Google has driven thousands and thousands of miles, but this is mostly over the same few miles of extremely well documented routes. The days of computers doing a sensible job of interacting with human drivers and the unexpected is still a long way off. Look at how difficult it is for a computer to positively identify spam email, something an average human can do at a glance with probably better than 99% success rate. Google in particular has gotten pretty good at this but still gets false positives or lets spam through to my inbox occasionally and that task is orders of magnitude simpler than driving a car. I'm not saying it won't happen, but there will be kinks to work out, both expected and likely some completely unforeseen. I suspect that enthusiasm and hubris will lead to a rushed deployment and there will be several highly publicized incidents in which a number of people are killed and that will be a setback. Time will tell.
You're basically describing the hype cycle. I suspect legislation will dampen that, though other interests like achieving environmental goals might reduce caution in governmental agencies.

 

Offline jmelson

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #106 on: January 09, 2018, 11:18:54 pm »
Forgive me if any of theses have already been mentioned.

1. Lower the crash bar.  Make it break-away, but make it *look* substantial.  And/or narrow the width of the entrance.  Make it evident that the driver is entering a confined space.
Yes, this has a lot of potential!  How about making it a pinata!  Make it out of thin-wall PVC drain pipe, and fill it with sand and gravel, and anchor it well enough so it will break when hit.  Then, the truck is showered with a big deluge of sand and gravel when hit.  That ought to make the driver notice "something" is wrong.

If done right, it might be really easy to reset for the next case.

Jon
 

Offline jmelson

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #107 on: January 09, 2018, 11:22:23 pm »

I'd be curious what the damaged vehicle and bridge repair costs are over the years, the insurance payouts.

I suspect most commercial vehicle insurance policies only cover liability in cases like this.  If you drive your truck into a bridge, the losses to the vehicle are likely NOT COVERED!
Not only that, if you do it more than a couple times per company, you won't be able to get insurance.


Oh yeah, there was the famous case where a guy with a flatbed truck loaded with a HUGE excavator went under a too-low overpass in Hays, Kansas.  The arm on the excavator punched up through the overpass and twisted the excavator around 180 degrees.  It twisted the beams in the overpass to the buckling point.  The highway patrol didn't stop traffic in both directions until a structural engineer looked at it and had a FIT!  The driver apparently went to jail for a few months, lost his CDL and the company was fined some two million dollars for the damage.
Plus, the truck and excavator were totalled.  I'll bet their insurance company was not thrilled.

Jon
« Last Edit: January 09, 2018, 11:28:41 pm by jmelson »
 

Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #108 on: January 09, 2018, 11:27:07 pm »
I'd be curious what the damaged vehicle and bridge repair costs are over the years, the insurance payouts.

I suspect most commercial vehicle insurance policies only cover liability.  If you drive your truck into a bridge, the losses to the vehicle are likely NOT COVERED!
Not only that, if you do it more than a couple times per company, you won't be able to get insurance.

Jon
[/quote]
Apparently, this kind of damage is usually specifically excluded. That makes for some very sour grapes.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #109 on: January 09, 2018, 11:28:43 pm »
The commercial truck that rear ended me last year was self-insured by the trucking company. I don't know how common that is but I suspect it's fairly typical for major trucking companies.
 

Offline Zero999

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #110 on: January 10, 2018, 11:01:13 am »
Personally I expect fully autonomous cars are about 20 years behind where most of the enthusiastic backers think they are. It's true that Google has driven thousands and thousands of miles, but this is mostly over the same few miles of extremely well documented routes. The days of computers doing a sensible job of interacting with human drivers and the unexpected is still a long way off. Look at how difficult it is for a computer to positively identify spam email, something an average human can do at a glance with probably better than 99% success rate. Google in particular has gotten pretty good at this but still gets false positives or lets spam through to my inbox occasionally and that task is orders of magnitude simpler than driving a car. I'm not saying it won't happen, but there will be kinks to work out, both expected and likely some completely unforeseen. I suspect that enthusiasm and hubris will lead to a rushed deployment and there will be several highly publicized incidents in which a number of people are killed and that will be a setback. Time will tell.
You're basically describing the hype cycle. I suspect legislation will dampen that, though other interests like achieving environmental goals might reduce caution in governmental agencies.


I agree about the hype and before self-driving cars are widespread, the technology will have to be more widely applied to simpler applications, such as trains and trams.
 

Offline T3sl4co1l

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #111 on: January 10, 2018, 11:44:32 am »
such as trains and trams.

Trains have been automated for decades. ???

Go figure that a graph of one-dimensional paths is an easier solved problem. :)

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Offline Zero999

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #112 on: January 10, 2018, 02:01:31 pm »
such as trains and trams.

Trains have been automated for decades. ???

Go figure that a graph of one-dimensional paths is an easier solved problem. :)

Tim
Where? There are a few driverless trains in the UK but most still have drivers. I can't speak for everywhere else. Perhaps the UK is more conservative with safety critical technology than elsewhere.
 

Offline T3sl4co1l

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #113 on: January 10, 2018, 02:03:59 pm »
AFAIK, the primary duty of an "engineer" is tapping the watchdog button every minute or so.

I don't know to what extent the actual driving is automated (at the throttle and brake), but route planning, certainly.

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Online IanB

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #114 on: January 10, 2018, 02:16:52 pm »
Trains have been automated for decades. ???
Where? There are a few driverless trains in the UK but most still have drivers.
[/quote]

As you may know the DLR has been fully driverless from the start.

On the London Underground several lines are now running with Automatic Train Operation (meaning the trains automatically regulate their speed and obey signals without manual intervention). The driver's duties mainly involve controlling the doors and monitoring passengers at stations.

I can see something similar happening with automatically driven cars. In the USA today there are isolated HOV lanes (express lanes for vehicles with more than one passenger) on many freeways. One could imagine in future that these lanes might be reserved only for automatic vehicles. Upon entering the lane the manual controls are disconnected and the car drives itself automatically maintaining a fixed distance from the cars in front and behind. All of the cars in the express lane could end up moving like a virtual train with no bunching, no sharp braking, and no waves of stationary vehicles.
 

Offline Zero999

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #115 on: January 10, 2018, 02:51:52 pm »
AFAIK, the primary duty of an "engineer" is tapping the watchdog button every minute or so.

I don't know to what extent the actual driving is automated (at the throttle and brake), but route planning, certainly.

Tim
It didn't stop the most recent huge accident on the west coast, which I believe was due to human error, which wouldn't have happened, if it were fully automated.

Quote
Quote

Trains have been automated for decades. ???
Where? There are a few driverless trains in the UK but most still have drivers.

As you may know the DLR has been fully driverless from the start.

On the London Underground several lines are now running with Automatic Train Operation (meaning the trains automatically regulate their speed and obey signals without manual intervention). The driver's duties mainly involve controlling the doors and monitoring passengers at stations.

That's a relatively small proportion of the rail network.

We also have guided busways which aren't fully automated. If they were, then it's possible some of the recent accidents, due to driver error (excess speed) could have been avoided. Once the bus is on the guided bussway, the only controls the driver should have access to are the clutch and break, in case something goes wrong.

Quote
I can see something similar happening with automatically driven cars. In the USA today there are isolated HOV lanes (express lanes for vehicles with more than one passenger) on many freeways. One could imagine in future that these lanes might be reserved only for automatic vehicles. Upon entering the lane the manual controls are disconnected and the car drives itself automatically maintaining a fixed distance from the cars in front and behind. All of the cars in the express lane could end up moving like a virtual train with no bunching, no sharp braking, and no waves of stationary vehicles.

Perhaps one day, but is unlikely to happen in the near future.

My point is, there are already plenty of jobs which technology is already mature enough to do, yet they've not been filled by it, even though it would be safer and cheaper, in the long term. No doubt one day there will be driverless cars, but the technology isn't quite there yet and even when it is, it will take a while before it's implemented.
 

Offline W2NAP

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #116 on: January 10, 2018, 03:14:14 pm »
Self-driving cars would probably screw up here as well.
No they won't. If the map says they won't fit. They won't drive there.

Where is this map you speak of that knows all bridge/overpass heights? I only know of GPS maps containing altitude data.

its called the truckers atlas https://www.amazon.com/McNally-Deluxe-Motor-Carriers-Mcnally/dp/0528017578
lists overpasses that are less then 13' 8" that are on state roads/us highways (ie truck routes) 
 

Offline W2NAP

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #117 on: January 10, 2018, 03:15:33 pm »
The commercial truck that rear ended me last year was self-insured by the trucking company. I don't know how common that is but I suspect it's fairly typical for major trucking companies.

typical of mega carriers like swift,werner who hires right from trucking school newbs
 

Offline james_s

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #118 on: January 10, 2018, 04:48:38 pm »
I can see something similar happening with automatically driven cars. In the USA today there are isolated HOV lanes (express lanes for vehicles with more than one passenger) on many freeways. One could imagine in future that these lanes might be reserved only for automatic vehicles. Upon entering the lane the manual controls are disconnected and the car drives itself automatically maintaining a fixed distance from the cars in front and behind. All of the cars in the express lane could end up moving like a virtual train with no bunching, no sharp braking, and no waves of stationary vehicles.

Imagine the pileup when a wheel comes off a truck in the adjacent lane or some other debris ends up in the automated lane and the cars slam on their brakes. I'm sure there will be some spectacular failures, especially early on.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #119 on: January 10, 2018, 04:52:59 pm »
The commercial truck that rear ended me last year was self-insured by the trucking company. I don't know how common that is but I suspect it's fairly typical for major trucking companies.

typical of mega carriers like swift,werner who hires right from trucking school newbs

This was a Kenan Advantage gasoline tanker. I don't know what the driver was doing but he wasn't paying attention. He slammed into the car behind me at ~50 MPH while we were stopped in a backup at the exit. Long straight section of freeway, I saw him coming a long way away in my rearview mirror, assumed he would slow down and stop.
 

Offline SeanB

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #120 on: January 10, 2018, 06:14:57 pm »
Years ago in the 1980's my father did a study ( he was a fleet manager for a region) and convinced the top to change the insurance they used. Insure the main hauler, insure the trailer, insure the driver, have full third party insurance, riot and political unrest and full public liability insurance, but not to insure the load. His reasoning was that, as the insurance rate for the freight alone was around 5% of total value, yet the claims amount was 3%, that self insurance was the cheaper option, and actually was a much cheaper option as well, because the amount that the breakages was could then be claimed back from the Receiver, as most of the value of the breakages cost was Excise Duty, seeing as the trucks were delivering beer alone.

Seeing as the major part of making a unit of beer is actually various taxes, duties and such Ad Valorum and the actual cost of making, bottling and distribution are smaller, then the claim back actually was cheaper. As well the losses were controlled better, simply by changing the packaging to a shrink wrapped pallet that could be handled in bulk with a fork lift, and putting extra trolleys on the trailers in a dedicated bay for delivery, saving carrying cases one by one, instead taking 11 at a time. Spec all trailers to have air suspension as well, and the losses dropped down to only in major accidents.
 

Offline technix

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #121 on: January 10, 2018, 06:40:13 pm »
Lo-tech solution: disguise. Make the clearance look like 7ft or 8ft instead of 11ft 8in which is likely just a little bit too short for a truck, so passengers and cars can pass but trucks will see it as obviously way too low. A lot of those truck drivers feel that the bridge have enough clearance but in reality they are just a bit too tall for it.

I wonder if 12ft is kind of a standard height for trucks, If so, maybe digging the road surface a bit lower to get a clean 12.5in clearance instead?
 

Offline Bassman59

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #122 on: January 10, 2018, 06:46:47 pm »
AFAIK, the primary duty of an "engineer" is tapping the watchdog button every minute or so.

if only that was the case -- there have been numerous train accidents which would have been prevented had the automatic braking systems been implemented per the law. I suppose it's cheaper to pay out for damages in lawsuits than to actually implement something to prevent the damages in the first place.
 

Online IanB

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #123 on: January 10, 2018, 07:23:40 pm »
It didn't stop the most recent huge accident on the west coast, which I believe was due to human error, which wouldn't have happened, if it were fully automated.

That wasn't human error, that was institutional incompetence.

I read that the train that crashed was running over that route for the first time, and doing it as a scheduled service with passengers on board. Nobody who knows how to run a railway would do that. With all the new rail services being opened up in London (e.g. Crossrail), they run empty trains over the route for three months before letting passengers on board, both for driver training and for infrastructure shakedown.
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: How would you use electronics to solve the 11' 8" bridge problem
« Reply #124 on: January 10, 2018, 07:38:14 pm »
There has been 126 crashes into this bridge:

SUE THE TRANSPORT AUTHORITY UNTIL THEY DIG THE ROAD DEEPER !

it is simple : there are rules how tall a truck can be. so every bridge must be at least taller than that rule. this one clearly does not meet the rules....
either close this underpass for all traffic and reroute it , or dig the road deeper. any other solution is unacceptable.

not with a counter at 126 ...
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