Safe Road Trains for the Environment

Safe Road Trains for the Environment (SARTRE) is a European Commission-funded project to investigate and trial technologies and strategies for the safe platooning of road vehicles, a transportation concept in which several vehicles are electronically linked together in a "road train", with only the lead driver in active control. The three-year project was launched in 2009. The research and development was carried out by several European auto manufactures with Volvo at the lead. A first practical test successfully took place in December 2010. In September Volvo announced that the SARTRE research project had come to a close, and that the company was ready to look into putting its finished product on the road. Given that Volvo once declared that it could eliminate all fatal accidents for its drivers by 2020, the SARTRE project is an important step.