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Why are we not seeing driver-less trains?

• pm24601 11y ago
  As in freight trains? Because freight trains have problems that need to be solved in the middle of nowhere. For example, a car shell's a wheel and it needs to be cut out to a siding in the middle of Utah in the middle of winter. Communication is limited to say the least. The siding is rarely used and is covered with snow and ice. The switch is a manual switch and is jammed with ice. A human can deal with getting these issues, cut out the defective car, put the train back together and proceed. How does a driverless freight train deal with this? The point here is that exceptions to normal behavior happen all the time. Most of the time, the human pulls to a siding, walks the train and a half-hour/45mins later the train is rolling again.
• elsewhen 11y ago
  there are driverless trains at lots of airports, but i think the reason they dont appear elsewhere is that the cost savings wouldnt be as great. a single train conductor is managing a massive vehicle - sometimes two orders of magnitude more than a truck. the labor component with trains is significantly lower than in trucking. i think the same is true for ships. taxis are at the other end of the spectrum, where labor is a very large part of the cost structure.
• vlasev 11y ago
  We are. We have our very own driver-less light rail in Vancouver: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_(Vancouver) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_(Vancouver)