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Up next: Google self-driving buses, finally American buses run with the same attention to time tables that Swiss ones do. And added benefit: they obey traffic

Up next: Google self-driving buses, finally American buses run with the same attention to time tables that Swiss ones do. And added benefit: they obey traffic safety laws.

simplemath 11y ago
Any job that chiefly involves a human operating a vehicle will not exist for much longer.
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  Not really: https://medium.com/@scobleizer/don-t-worry-uber-lyft-drivers-self-driving-cars-won-t-take-your-job-for-at-least-a-decade-3b8c58a7f102#.45ft79ln0 https://medium.com/@scobleizer/don-t-worry-uber-lyft-drivers...
- semi-extrinsic 11y ago
  Maaybe for the "easy" stuff like public transport. But for many of the specialised jobs that also boil down to a human operating a vehicle, e.g. excavators, log cutting machines, snowplows etc. it takes a human who already knows how to drive a car many months, even years to learn how to do it. Since the market for these machines is many orders of magnitude smaller than for cars, and each machine type is so specialised that there is limited overlap, so the cost-benefit ratio is much worse than for cars. Thus I think it will take a lot longer for these jobs to be automated away.
  - simplemath 11y ago
    Heavy Machine Operators are probably good for 5 or 10 years longer than the rest... tops. Isn't Rio Tinto already using AI to operate its haulers? Even in niche specialized corners, the value prop of self operating machines is going to become increasingly overwhelming.
    - throwaway2048 11y ago
      if replacing a machine costs $5 million, and the automatic model $1 million ontop of that, and you pay an operator $60k a year, the value proposition isn't very clear.
      - simplemath 11y ago
        What if the automatic model was only 200k more? 20k? It's all coming.
        throwaway2048 11y ago
        For classes of machines where only a few thousand, or even a few tens/hundreds of thousands of units exist total, the costs of developing the sophisticated AI that requires are not going to be that low for a lot longer than 5-10 years from now. Especially considering the market is split between many player and none are going to share their secret sauce AI.
ihsw 11y ago
Actually there is a very strong argument to have buses and trains automated before consumer vehicles.
- bewatson 11y ago
  I wager that if this happened, it would both increase the use of public transportation and increase the public opinion of AVs (assuming it is done once the technology is acceptable). Probably not as profitable for the companies producing the consumer vehicles though.
  - joeframbach 11y ago
    I wager that if this happened, it would only increase the amount of defecation on unsupervised public transportation
    - ant6n 11y ago
      I have taken transit all my life, thousands of trips, and have never seen any evidence of this.
kuschku 11y ago
The issue are not the drivers. I’ll report what I observed in 2 years of 3 to 4 times of using the bus a day in Germany. Every time a bus was late, or tried to break the sound barrier™ in the hope of reducing some of the delay, was due to one of the following issues: (a) A tourist with texan accent trying to get onto the bus, discussing with the bus driver if he can pay with credit card or in dollar (no), then asking the bus driver to wait while he’s going to get money from the nearest ATM (happens at about 5% of stops in the downtown areas where the tourists are) (b) Rush hour traffic, 200 people squeezing into a single bus, and another few hundred waiting at the bus stop – busses coming every one or two minutes, and it takes quite some time until people stop trying to get into the bus, and leave enough space for the doors to close (c) some kids with invalid tickets trying to cheat and getting caught These issues can’t be fixed by automated busses, or trains. Only by less tight schedules, and more busses and trains.
- nske 11y ago
  In fairness, I think the best way to fix (a), (b) and (c) would actually be by automated buses or trains, that would enforce reasonable limitations strictly, without the possibility of negotiation. i.e. the passenger would be prevented from boarding the vehicle without a valid ticket and provided there was sufficient capacity for a speedy and comfortable boarding.
- Symbiote 11y ago
  (a) is fixed because there's probably no-one for the Texan to talk to on the bus. For trains, the person to talk to is on the platform, and can simply let the train depart (example: Copenhagen Metro, although good luck spotting any staff). It could be more easily fixed by accepting foreign credit cards (Gothenburg manages this, London if the card is contactless) or telling drivers not to wait. (b) is partly solved if the cost of running buses/trains is significantly reduced, as that leaves money for extra vehicles. (c)... well, who will notice?
  - kuschku 11y ago
    Also, regarding (b): Already many cities today operate busses by taking unemployed people and forcing them to take the job as bus driver for no pay (they'd have to continue living off of welfare), otherwise they'd lose 50% of their welfare money. That's how you get bus drivers for free — automated vehicles can't really beat that.
david-given 11y ago
I have actually visited Mountain View, from Switzerland, and caught a bus on El Camino. Probably not far from where this incident happened. Yeah. Timetables are not a thing that happens there. ...I remember once in Zurich when my local bus was two minutes late. The people at the bus stop were really quite cross.
- umanwizard 11y ago
  How is it possible to run buses with perfectly accurate timetables? I imagine traffic conditions are somewhat unpredictable in Switzerland, just like anywhere else.
  - ojii 11y ago
    In heavy snow, busses (and especially trams) tend to not run on schedule anymore in Zurich. During reasonable conditions, they normally do. One thing they have is buffer time at the end of the lines, so that if it's late on one run, it won't be late for all runs. Some longer lines don't run quite on schedule, especially during rush hour, but their high frequency usually makes that a non-issue.
  - david-given 11y ago
    In a word: margins. There's enough slack in the timetable to account for delays. If the bus would normally take one minute to get from one stop to the next, the timetable will actually account 90 seconds, etc. Then there are certain stops where the bus will, if it gets there early, stop and wait. They don't do this on every stop, but they're frequent enough to keep the service regulated. Intelligently, these stops are also the ones which synchronise with other transport systems. For example, when I take the train home from work I know that there'll be a bus waiting for me when I get off at my station. It's not perfect, but the overwhelming majority of the time it Just Works.

Up next: Google self-driving buses, finally American buses run with the same attention to time tables that Swiss ones do. And added benefit: they obey traffic safety laws.

simplemath 11y ago

Any job that chiefly involves a human operating a vehicle will not exist for much longer.

ocdtrekkie 11y ago
Not really: https://medium.com/@scobleizer/don-t-worry-uber-lyft-drivers-self-driving-cars-won-t-take-your-job-for-at-least-a-decade-3b8c58a7f102#.45ft79ln0 https://medium.com/@scobleizer/don-t-worry-uber-lyft-drivers...
semi-extrinsic 11y ago
Maaybe for the "easy" stuff like public transport. But for many of the specialised jobs that also boil down to a human operating a vehicle, e.g. excavators, log cutting machines, snowplows etc. it takes a human who already knows how to drive a car many months, even years to learn how to do it. Since the market for these machines is many orders of magnitude smaller than for cars, and each machine type is so specialised that there is limited overlap, so the cost-benefit ratio is much worse than for cars. Thus I think it will take a lot longer for these jobs to be automated away.
- simplemath 11y ago
  Heavy Machine Operators are probably good for 5 or 10 years longer than the rest... tops. Isn't Rio Tinto already using AI to operate its haulers? Even in niche specialized corners, the value prop of self operating machines is going to become increasingly overwhelming.
  - throwaway2048 11y ago
    if replacing a machine costs $5 million, and the automatic model $1 million ontop of that, and you pay an operator $60k a year, the value proposition isn't very clear.
    - simplemath 11y ago
      What if the automatic model was only 200k more? 20k? It's all coming.
      - throwaway2048 11y ago
        For classes of machines where only a few thousand, or even a few tens/hundreds of thousands of units exist total, the costs of developing the sophisticated AI that requires are not going to be that low for a lot longer than 5-10 years from now. Especially considering the market is split between many player and none are going to share their secret sauce AI.

ihsw 11y ago

Actually there is a very strong argument to have buses and trains automated before consumer vehicles.

bewatson 11y ago
I wager that if this happened, it would both increase the use of public transportation and increase the public opinion of AVs (assuming it is done once the technology is acceptable). Probably not as profitable for the companies producing the consumer vehicles though.
- joeframbach 11y ago
  I wager that if this happened, it would only increase the amount of defecation on unsupervised public transportation
  - ant6n 11y ago
    I have taken transit all my life, thousands of trips, and have never seen any evidence of this.

kuschku 11y ago

The issue are not the drivers. I’ll report what I observed in 2 years of 3 to 4 times of using the bus a day in Germany. Every time a bus was late, or tried to break the sound barrier™ in the hope of reducing some of the delay, was due to one of the following issues: (a) A tourist with texan accent trying to get onto the bus, discussing with the bus driver if he can pay with credit card or in dollar (no), then asking the bus driver to wait while he’s going to get money from the nearest ATM (happens at about 5% of stops in the downtown areas where the tourists are) (b) Rush hour traffic, 200 people squeezing into a single bus, and another few hundred waiting at the bus stop – busses coming every one or two minutes, and it takes quite some time until people stop trying to get into the bus, and leave enough space for the doors to close (c) some kids with invalid tickets trying to cheat and getting caught These issues can’t be fixed by automated busses, or trains. Only by less tight schedules, and more busses and trains.

nske 11y ago
In fairness, I think the best way to fix (a), (b) and (c) would actually be by automated buses or trains, that would enforce reasonable limitations strictly, without the possibility of negotiation. i.e. the passenger would be prevented from boarding the vehicle without a valid ticket and provided there was sufficient capacity for a speedy and comfortable boarding.
Symbiote 11y ago
(a) is fixed because there's probably no-one for the Texan to talk to on the bus. For trains, the person to talk to is on the platform, and can simply let the train depart (example: Copenhagen Metro, although good luck spotting any staff). It could be more easily fixed by accepting foreign credit cards (Gothenburg manages this, London if the card is contactless) or telling drivers not to wait. (b) is partly solved if the cost of running buses/trains is significantly reduced, as that leaves money for extra vehicles. (c)... well, who will notice?
- kuschku 11y ago
  Also, regarding (b): Already many cities today operate busses by taking unemployed people and forcing them to take the job as bus driver for no pay (they'd have to continue living off of welfare), otherwise they'd lose 50% of their welfare money. That's how you get bus drivers for free — automated vehicles can't really beat that.

david-given 11y ago

I have actually visited Mountain View, from Switzerland, and caught a bus on El Camino. Probably not far from where this incident happened. Yeah. Timetables are not a thing that happens there. ...I remember once in Zurich when my local bus was two minutes late. The people at the bus stop were really quite cross.

umanwizard 11y ago
How is it possible to run buses with perfectly accurate timetables? I imagine traffic conditions are somewhat unpredictable in Switzerland, just like anywhere else.
- ojii 11y ago
  In heavy snow, busses (and especially trams) tend to not run on schedule anymore in Zurich. During reasonable conditions, they normally do. One thing they have is buffer time at the end of the lines, so that if it's late on one run, it won't be late for all runs. Some longer lines don't run quite on schedule, especially during rush hour, but their high frequency usually makes that a non-issue.
- david-given 11y ago
  In a word: margins. There's enough slack in the timetable to account for delays. If the bus would normally take one minute to get from one stop to the next, the timetable will actually account 90 seconds, etc. Then there are certain stops where the bus will, if it gets there early, stop and wait. They don't do this on every stop, but they're frequent enough to keep the service regulated. Intelligently, these stops are also the ones which synchronise with other transport systems. For example, when I take the train home from work I know that there'll be a bus waiting for me when I get off at my station. It's not perfect, but the overwhelming majority of the time it Just Works.