Caravans Versus Platooning: Promises and Perils for AI Driverless Cars

Dr. Lance B. Eliot, AI Insider

Cars can be in caravans and they can be in platoons (there is a difference)

I was stuck in traffic when a Presidential motorcade made its way from Los Angeles LAX airport to tony Beverly Hills in sunny Southern California. This caravan of cars included an impressive array of special stretch limos, armored SUV’s, and a slew of police vehicles that were making sure that nobody intervened into the VIP line of cars.

It caused all of the surrounding or nearby traffic to come to a halt.

About a month earlier, there was a funeral procession of cars for a famous celebrity, and the procession or caravan of cars started at a funeral home in one location of town and proceeded on a lengthy driving journey to a cemetery in another city where the deceased was to be buried. This was a similar kind of “caravan” as akin to the Presidential motorcade and was guided by police cars to keep the group going along smoothly.

At self-driving car conferences that I speak at, I’ve noticed that some people seem to inadvertently confuse the notion of car caravans with the notion of platooning. They are different aspects.

Platooning does include the idea that you have multiple vehicles trying to stay together while driving on a journey, and in that sense, it has apparent similarities to a caravan…