The European project SARTRE focuses on an alternative to single, completely autonomous vehicles such as those developed at Google by Sebastian Thrun or those of the autonomous taxi developed by the AutoNOMOS Project or by the MadeInGermany project, both by Raúl Rojas. Instead, SARTRE develops road trains - convoys of vehicles that autonomously follow a lead vehicle driven by a professional driver.

Such vehicle platoons function much like an improved version of adaptive cruise control, matching a car's movements to the distance, speed, and the direction of the car in front. Once in a platoon, this allows drivers to relax and do other things like reading or even taking a nap while the platoon drives toward its long distance destination.

SARTRE has now shown what this could look like in a real-world demonstration of a single autonomous car following a human-driven test vehicle in highway conditions.

For more information, see SARTRE: Autonomous car platoons.