3 ms·

I don't understand, why would you need self driving cars if you don't want to drive? Public transport is here, is cheaper and safer. Also it allows to multita

by gkya 10y ago

I don't understand, why would you need self driving cars if you don't want to drive? Public transport is here, is cheaper and safer. Also it allows to multitask.

serge2k 10y ago
autonomous or not, taking the bus is still going to be a craptacular experience.
- JBReefer 10y ago
  Hey, I love my bus. It's a really pleasant part of my morning.
  - serge2k 10y ago
    last time I took the bus some guy fell asleep on my shoulder. It's loud, slow, too warm, uncomfortable, and literally makes me feel ill about half the time (I get terrible motion sickness).
joshmarlow 10y ago
Well.... public transportation requires infrastructure which is not always around. In the south-east USA, for instance, there are public buses here and there but they rarely go for more than a few miles, and there are no trains or subways to travel mid-distance or between cities. So grey-hound or car rentals are your best bet unless you already own a car.
- gkya 10y ago
  I'm in one of the most crowded and traffic-ridden of the world, non-US. We have a growing rail complex and a good and frequent bus system. I perceive car ownership as masochism, as public transport is always faster, and you don't have to care about parking, gas, taxes and all the other burdens associated with cars. Electric cars won't solve these, e.g. many cars can self park, but you can't save the time spent searching for a parking space, self drive or manual. It also won't save you from traffic. There are also legal questions about self driving. For example if my theoretical fully self driving hits a passenger on the zebras that hasn't dresses up for the liking of radars, who is guilty? Certainly there needs to be put in place a big infrastructure for interautomobile communication to effectively avoid crashes. Infrastrutture is unavoidable. This is like saying: if the electric infrastructure is not good and widely available, then give everyone a generator.
  - jamornh 10y ago
    Self driving cars and public transportation are not mutually exclusive though. Think of how convenient it would be when buses and taxi operate just as easily at night as during the day. One of the reason why cabs are more expensive at night in some cities is because you have to pay the driver more to provide the service at night. Same with buses.
    - gkya 10y ago
      Certainly I agree you. I was getting at private car ownership. Self driving buses and cabs may indeed be fine.
  - joshmarlow 10y ago
    "if the electric infrastructure is not good and widely available, then give everyone a generator" I like this analogy! My comment wasn't about how I think things should be, just an observation about how they currently are. Currently in parts of the US (and I'm sure other parts of the globe too), the public transport infrastructure isn't there. That being said, I long for the day when cities or companies maintain fleets of self-driving cars/buses I can summon as needed.
dredmorbius 10y ago
I'm a huge fan of public transit. It is of limited utility in land-use patterns typical of modern American cities, or, far more so, suburbs. If you can take a vehicle directly to your destination, or a short walk from it, things works pretty well. If you need to transfer, even once, you can easily double trip time (consider a typical commute is ~20 minutes one-way). Scheduling transfers with shared-roadbed (e.g., bus, light rail) systems is all but impossible. Prior to the creation of early transit systems (horse-drawn omnibuses, either wheeled or tracked), few cities had a cross-section of more than 1-2 miles, as 1 miles is about a 20 minute walk. Streetcars (horse, electric, steam) extended that based on their average speed, typically 5-15 mph, with a 5-10 mile commute becoming possible though still usually less, and those commutes forming along rail lines, hence a hub-and-spoke city layout (see for example Chicago). Dense grids such as New York's were unusual. Personal (or small-ridership) vehicles can go directly point-to-point, and make longer, flexible-route commutes possible (I'm not saying this is a good thing, merely a fact), though requiring parking, chauffers/cabbies, automatic vehicle control, etc.). In an interesting parallel, one reason there were so many horses in late-19th-century America was because of railroads. You had 30-60 MPH transit along fixed routes, but limited movement within cities or towns. So horses, wagons, and coaches to get to and from railway stations for goods and people. Petrol-powered automobiles replaced horses before they substituted for trains, though railroad use was already in decline by 1920 (rising one last time due to fuel rationing in WWII). Upshot: there's a place for public transit, but almost certainly only with massively revamped land-use within urban and suburban regions.
int_19h 10y ago
Because I don't want to be crammed into a tight space with several dozen other people?

by gkya 10y ago

I don't understand, why would you need self driving cars if you don't want to drive? Public transport is here, is cheaper and safer. Also it allows to multitask.

serge2k 10y ago

autonomous or not, taking the bus is still going to be a craptacular experience.

JBReefer 10y ago
Hey, I love my bus. It's a really pleasant part of my morning.
- serge2k 10y ago
  last time I took the bus some guy fell asleep on my shoulder. It's loud, slow, too warm, uncomfortable, and literally makes me feel ill about half the time (I get terrible motion sickness).

joshmarlow 10y ago

Well.... public transportation requires infrastructure which is not always around. In the south-east USA, for instance, there are public buses here and there but they rarely go for more than a few miles, and there are no trains or subways to travel mid-distance or between cities. So grey-hound or car rentals are your best bet unless you already own a car.

gkya 10y ago
I'm in one of the most crowded and traffic-ridden of the world, non-US. We have a growing rail complex and a good and frequent bus system. I perceive car ownership as masochism, as public transport is always faster, and you don't have to care about parking, gas, taxes and all the other burdens associated with cars. Electric cars won't solve these, e.g. many cars can self park, but you can't save the time spent searching for a parking space, self drive or manual. It also won't save you from traffic. There are also legal questions about self driving. For example if my theoretical fully self driving hits a passenger on the zebras that hasn't dresses up for the liking of radars, who is guilty? Certainly there needs to be put in place a big infrastructure for interautomobile communication to effectively avoid crashes. Infrastrutture is unavoidable. This is like saying: if the electric infrastructure is not good and widely available, then give everyone a generator.
- jamornh 10y ago
  Self driving cars and public transportation are not mutually exclusive though. Think of how convenient it would be when buses and taxi operate just as easily at night as during the day. One of the reason why cabs are more expensive at night in some cities is because you have to pay the driver more to provide the service at night. Same with buses.
  - gkya 10y ago
    Certainly I agree you. I was getting at private car ownership. Self driving buses and cabs may indeed be fine.
- joshmarlow 10y ago
  "if the electric infrastructure is not good and widely available, then give everyone a generator" I like this analogy! My comment wasn't about how I think things should be, just an observation about how they currently are. Currently in parts of the US (and I'm sure other parts of the globe too), the public transport infrastructure isn't there. That being said, I long for the day when cities or companies maintain fleets of self-driving cars/buses I can summon as needed.

dredmorbius 10y ago

I'm a huge fan of public transit. It is of limited utility in land-use patterns typical of modern American cities, or, far more so, suburbs. If you can take a vehicle directly to your destination, or a short walk from it, things works pretty well. If you need to transfer, even once, you can easily double trip time (consider a typical commute is ~20 minutes one-way). Scheduling transfers with shared-roadbed (e.g., bus, light rail) systems is all but impossible. Prior to the creation of early transit systems (horse-drawn omnibuses, either wheeled or tracked), few cities had a cross-section of more than 1-2 miles, as 1 miles is about a 20 minute walk. Streetcars (horse, electric, steam) extended that based on their average speed, typically 5-15 mph, with a 5-10 mile commute becoming possible though still usually less, and those commutes forming along rail lines, hence a hub-and-spoke city layout (see for example Chicago). Dense grids such as New York's were unusual. Personal (or small-ridership) vehicles can go directly point-to-point, and make longer, flexible-route commutes possible (I'm not saying this is a good thing, merely a fact), though requiring parking, chauffers/cabbies, automatic vehicle control, etc.). In an interesting parallel, one reason there were so many horses in late-19th-century America was because of railroads. You had 30-60 MPH transit along fixed routes, but limited movement within cities or towns. So horses, wagons, and coaches to get to and from railway stations for goods and people. Petrol-powered automobiles replaced horses before they substituted for trains, though railroad use was already in decline by 1920 (rising one last time due to fuel rationing in WWII). Upshot: there's a place for public transit, but almost certainly only with massively revamped land-use within urban and suburban regions.

int_19h 10y ago

Because I don't want to be crammed into a tight space with several dozen other people?