"Platoons would need to transmit their status to the intersection and the signal change would need to be advanced or delayed to treat the platoon as a single long vehicle," said Alan Stevens, chief scientist and research director at transport firm TRL.
His aim may have been social justice, but he brought to it a conservative's enthusiasm for what Burke called "the little platoons".
This week has seen a tiff over a shipload of explosives bound for Sudan, five al-Qaeda suspects collared in Malawi, four men charged for their alleged role in a suicide attack in Kenya, and a ban on flights between Kenya and Somalia, for fear that terrorists lurking in the latter might infiltrate the former.It sounds as if Osama bin Laden's platoons were furiously active in Africa.
Automatic meter reading removes the need for platoons of meter readers and cuts down on paperwork.
It could be used to set up ad hoc networks to pass data between cars in order to, for example, signal icy spots on the road (many cars can detect ice as part of their skid-control systems) or co-ordinate "platoons"—groups of vehicles travelling closely together under automatic control.
Less common among bureaucrats, however, is his radicalism.In this section Platoons under siege Playground politics The darkest deal Softball War of numbers Enter the chicken king Beyond petroleum The unsung radical Muscle v multiculturalism ReprintsThe government is eager to create a more open and decentralised state.
The army has set up six demining platoons, but these are not keeping pace with the problem.
V2V would also allow vehicles to travel together in platoons or "road trains", making more efficient use of road capacity.A consortium of European companies has tested five-vehicle platoons in which the lead vehicle is controlled by a human driver and the other four travel close behind it under autonomous control.
Add up all the various funding streams, and the total potential supply of money to the little platoons in the coming years will be massive.
The prime minister should take note, though, that small platoons can challenge the government as well as queue up to do the sort of things it likes.
They've all got platoons of lobbyists swarming onto Capitol Hill.
