The Wave Nature of Vehicles, or The Wavicular Duality

I just read an article about new research on wave patterns in traffic flow. This has been a topic of fascination for me since I took my first physics class in high school.

I recently had a discussion with a co-worker about personal-sized vehicles that touched on this topic. The thought was that personal-sized vehicles could be designed to chain together (like a train almost) and allow the driver of the first vehicle to control the entire train.

There are several benefits:

1. For a commuter, this frees all but the first car from any driving concerns. The occupants of trailing cars can use the time for reading or work without needing to drive.
2. It would improve fuel efficiency. Not only are the personal-sized cars more likely to be fuel efficient individually, but the chain of cars would be even more fuel efficient due to a longer aerodynamic profile.
3. The traffic congestion would decrease because the chain of cars would operate as a unit, eliminating the effect of many separate cars.

To make this chain of cars concept fair, the couple between cars should be smart enough to allow equal energy contribution from each car. Also, braking should be applied by each individual car in the chain.

It's interesting to think about. The problem is how to get enough critical mass for an effort like this to make it realistic.

Maybe I'll expand on these thoughts later.