The whole deal with self driving cars being preferable to them is two fold: Auto Industry interests & being afraid of and uncomfortable being in the presence of poor people on public transportation.
Because of guilt, alienation from them (“poor people are only interested in my money”), and disgust.
Tech bros reinventing shit again. I remember the time one of them invented taxes again lol.
Are there self-driving trains? Seems like they’re all staffed by a real driver.
Almost like we’re fine with trying with if only a car- or 2-sworth of people dies, but a train is too many.
(More likely that nobody cares about trains enough to try)
Many locomotives can be remote controlled. There are spur lines where remote controlled movement is regular enough to have a posted sign warning about it.
Some metros are.
The locomotives/engines themselves for freight and longer distance passenger generally have a crew for the lead loco only… E.g. of the 2-6 engines, one crew for the train even if it’s pushing 2mi long.
Railroad Co’s definitely care about going driverless… It becomes a safety issue more than anything. One less crew to pay though. Driverless isnt the end goal… There are people controlling safety mechanisms, routes, etc behind the scenes too. After all each engine once had a crew, a caboose for a second crew (replaced by automated, stationary defect/object detectors), and more. While things have gotten safer, it isn’t because less people are involved and large leaps in safety - like brakes - were against RR co’s desires.
Yes, but mostly in smaller systems like fully-automated airport people-movers and a few light rail systems.
Not exactly the same, but some metro trains are unmanned. I suspect they are more likely to be remotely driven, though.
The metro in Copenhagen is unmanned and automated. But the tracks and the trains themselves are protected by walls so you can’t physically get onto the tracks.
I wish there could be self-driving cars containing sand batteries or otherwise non-lithium batteries. I’d want one that didn’t have any fancy Bluetooth features that just displayed the time, had a radio, and CD player.
we could even attach some kind of overhead wire to recharge the batteries while the vehicle is driving
Let’s go further:
- Make streets for self-driving cars.
- Make the self-driving cars hold a lot more people. Like, a fuckload more.
- Since self-driving is unreliable, put actual drivers in them. Due to #2 it won’t be a big cost.
And…
That’s exactly what my city implemented in the 90s.Those sociopathic money hoarders are desperate to reinvent the wheel, and everything else on it.
The sociopaths want everyone isolated, that’s better for control and their business
How many fuck loads of people do you know of who are coming from and going to the same place every day?
Millions of people ride the NYC subway every day , and take the city buses. So, a lot.
NYC population density : ~29,000 people per square mile.
Median population density of cities in the US : ~2000 people per square mile.
It depends on how wide or narrow you define “same place”.
If “same place” is “same neighbourhood, at walking distance”, and one of the neighbourhoods is downtown, then it’s quite a bit.
Plus buses are not restricted to two stations. And changing buses in the middle of your path is feasible, as long as the system is designed for that.
And there lies the problem with just replacing cars with buses, you must slow down, stop, wait, and then speed up again many more times than compared to a car. And most of the time you have to deal with (at least 1) connection. And then you have to walk or bike a significant distance both to and from the bus stop.
Now factor in that most people are going to need a vehicle in the US for various other tasks… I use mine as part of my job to carry equipment from place to place, as part of my recreation to get a kayak around, as part of home maintenance to bring in new materials and carry out old stuff… All stuff I need to do on a fairly regular basis. So I’m paying to own and maintain a car already, why would I pay more to travel (much) slower, using more effort, and having less flexibility about when and where I can go?
Simply put, major bus network don’t work in most of the US because only our most densely populated cities meet the threshold where the bus is even close to meeting a personal vehicle in terms of cost, time, and stress.
Externalized costs are paid by someone. Maybe even you, later.
Now factor in that most people are going to need a vehicle in the US for various other tasks…
And there lies the problem with US.
And there lies the problem with just replacing cars with buses
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m showing the idea in the OP (exclusive streets for “public” urban transport) is old as fuck and yet those money hoarders are reinventing it in a worse way. That’s it.
If you want my actual take on what’s the “best”: I do not think replacing everything with buses is sensible. I think buses and metropolitan trains are a good backbone, but there should be a mix, including direct transportation (e.g. taxi, regardless of being self-driving or not).
So congrats for building a straw man out of assumptions, and then beating it up. *yawn*
Now factor in that most people are going to need a vehicle in the US […]
Simply put, major bus network don’t work in most of the US […]
Emphasis mine. I’m not from USA, this comm is not about USA, and I’m clearly talking in a country-agnostic way, even if the pic I shared happens to be from my country (and city).
So, lemme be a wee bit blunt: why do you think I bloody care about USA enough to discuss the particularities of transport there? I don’t.
If USA or Kazakhstan or Nigeria or France or whatever have additional challenges against sane public transport, this perhaps warrants its own discussion thread. But it’s certainly not an excuse to narrow a discussion down from “everybody should be able to chime in” into “HOW DO PEOPLE DARE TO NOT TALK ABOUT MY COUNTRY?”, okay?
Not further wasting my time with you.
If you want my actual take on what’s the “best”: I do not think replacing everything with buses is sensible. I think buses and metropolitan trains are a good backbone, but there should be a mix, including direct transportation (e.g. taxi, regardless of being self-driving or not).
So congrats for building a straw man out of assumptions, and then beating it up. yawn
I think you need to take a break and go outside. Can you point to the statement I made where I accused you of thinking that buses were best? I’m pretty sure I was pointing out the issue with buses in the US, which is that most people aren’t coming and going to the same nearby places, and a lot of people need the extra utility of a personal vehicle and aren’t going to bother with the extra cost and inconvenience of a bus.
Perhaps it is you, who has built a straw man?
But it’s certainly not an excuse to narrow a discussion down from “everybody should be able to chime in” into “HOW DO PEOPLE DARE TO NOT TALK ABOUT MY COUNTRY?”
The irony of saying that right after this…
Emphasis mine. I’m not from USA, this comm is not about USA, and I’m clearly talking in a country-agnostic way, even if the pic I shared happens to be from my country (and city).
So, lemme be a wee bit blunt: why do you think I bloody care about USA enough to discuss the particularities of transport there? I don’t.
Just absolutely floors me.
Not further wasting my time with you.
Glad to hear it. Go outside and I dunno, ride your wonderful bus around. You need a break. Go do something nice.
B-b-but mah freedom!!!
And then what?? Walk 100m to the McDonald’s?
I have people on the daily parking illegally to avoid walking across the street (8 meters or 0.024 football fields). It’s always such a pleasure telling them to move.
Oh we’ll just use all the money going into cars today to pay for public transport, and you’ll have the freedom to go to the nearest bus stop and take a bus without even checking the schedule
you’ll have the freedom to go to the nearest bus stop
My nearest bus stop is ~20 minutes away by bicycle. It’s inconvenient on a good day. Getting there in the rain or the snow would be absolutely miserable.
Which wouldnt be the case with properly funded public transport I assume.
But with all that car money, we can build more bus stops
Whicu model of bus is this and why is it so happy 😃
Eicher Skyline Pro [3011/3010/3009??]
It looks happy because a real bus is always in a good mood
That’s what we are building in the Vancouver metro area. New SkyTrain route going in (to supplement existing system), and changing certain roads to dedicates bus lanes and bike paths to get people to the train.
For those unfamiliar with the SkyTrain branding. It is a network of raised rails (majority of it above street level) via concrete pillars and bridging segments.
Oh so an elevated rail? That’s the more common light rail styles here in the US. Glad to hear you’re committing so hard to it
I can totally get on board with this for self-driving guided busses in special bus lanes. That’s something that many cities and countries already do anyway, and it’s basically a cheaper, more maintainable version of a tram, and you can even build special battery-powered, tram-like busses (with overhead or induction charging stations) for this specific purpose.
For example, they got these bad boys with overhead charging in Amiens, France:
Here’s an example with optical guidance from Yibin, China:
Meanwhile, my city bitches about putting in a sign for a bus stop.
I kinda wanted to make a “joke” twitter account called “ShowMeYourBusStop” where people could send pics of this shitty excuses we have for bus stops in the US.
Idk a tram is still superior in all aspects apart from purchase price. Especially maintainability being easier /cheaper on asphalt vs steel rail i absolutely do not buy. But at least these things get largely dedicated right of ways so the upgrade to a real tram is much simpler. Bus ride quality is also absolutely dogshit compared to trams. BRT and this kind of tech augmented BRT is fine if your city is just learning to do transit. It’s good even. But if they have learned a bit rails will always be king for mass transit.
I like trams, too, but based on the local political discussions that I’ve seen so far, one of the main challenges in building a tram network is the high costs for rails, overhead wires, etc., so guided busses are a good option for many (especially smaller) cities. I’m no expert, though, so I may be wrong, and I don’t know how these options would scale.
The ‘self-driving car problem’ to me is that people are so gullible and so easily drawn into cults of personality that the business guy who promised it for a decade (and kept failing and extending his deadline at every single opportunity) was never actually held accountable for his lies, and instead is now the richest man on earth - encouraging others to follow his lead.
Meanwhile, other companies are actually making autonomous vehicles.
All the ones that still have radar and LiDAR seem to be making good progress, but they still have very real issues with misinterpreting objects and other errors. I’m sure they’ll just be rubber stamped by regulators in most of the US because technological progress, but I think they still have a long way to go to meet safety approval in most other countries.
True that they’re far advanced over Tesla though.
Do you have any sources to back up your claims? From what I’ve seen, the NHTSA is being quite vigilant (see what happened to Cruise), and the classifiers I’ve been privy to have seemed robust.
If driving is so desirable why would you outsource it? The problem isn’t the driver.
I know right… Eureka!!! hahaha this country is not meant to make sense. It is waging war against you.
