3 ms·

I think all the autonomous fleet stuff done by Uber is pure hype to get more investors thinking that is the endgame, and that it's not just viable in the next 5

by cmurf 9y ago

I think all the autonomous fleet stuff done by Uber is pure hype to get more investors thinking that is the endgame, and that it's not just viable in the next 5-10 years, but inevitability. There is no reason why municipalities should not consider their own autonomous fleets as part of public transit. The roads are already public, having a fully autonomous fleet is hardly any different than public buses or trains purchased from private manufacturers. It'll be a commodity (or at least it should be, short of monopolization and cronyism).

melvinmt 9y ago
Exactly. We had a similar discussion a couple days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16006674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16006674.
djsumdog 9y ago
> There is no reason why municipalities should not consider their own autonomous fleets as part of public transit. Except that they're terrible inefficient, and still 10~15 years away. Even if the tech was available tomorrow, and even if you could cut off Interstates so they only allowed autonomous vehicles and all those vehicles could run at 120kph, bumper-to-bumper at less than .5 meter intervals, a six lane highway would even begin to approach the capacity of a single track of London train line running at <2min intervals (which they often do during the morning rush .. often times < 30sec intervals). http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-solve-the-transportation-problem/ http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-sol... Self-driving cars are new and shiny and all the rage, but they're nowhere near ready for production deployment en-mass, people still don't realize that no person can actually own a autonomous car (the inspection/maintenance cycle would need to be more strict than a small engine aircraft) and therefore they wouldn't be able to be modified in any way. For a fraction of the cost, American cities could revitalize and expand our crumbling rail infrastructure, which would be way more helpful than autonomous public car fleets.
- cmurf 9y ago
  I did say "part of" public transit. Clearly trains have a role in moving people from point A to F to M, and the in-between can be done with autonomous. And I don't have a 5-10 year pie in the sky idea of autonomous either, I'm thinking 25 years down the road. The point is car ownership itself is obsolete and it's not a big stretch for there to be a public car option. The road infra is already public, just like rail tracks and rail cars.
- scarmig 9y ago
  Maintenance is likely to be cheaper per mile for an autonomous car than a human driven one, though a combination of actually being on a regular cycle, dedicated fleet facilities, and better driving practices. As far as autonomous vs traditional public transit, it's a false dichotomy. Municipalities will use both when it comes to moving people around, because they're good for different use cases. You choose one particular metric where trains do win out, but that's an irrelevancy, because it's not even close to feasible to build a system of trains that do everything that cars currently are able to do.

by cmurf 9y ago

melvinmt 9y ago

Exactly. We had a similar discussion a couple days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16006674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16006674.

djsumdog 9y ago

> There is no reason why municipalities should not consider their own autonomous fleets as part of public transit. Except that they're terrible inefficient, and still 10~15 years away. Even if the tech was available tomorrow, and even if you could cut off Interstates so they only allowed autonomous vehicles and all those vehicles could run at 120kph, bumper-to-bumper at less than .5 meter intervals, a six lane highway would even begin to approach the capacity of a single track of London train line running at <2min intervals (which they often do during the morning rush .. often times < 30sec intervals). http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-solve-the-transportation-problem/ http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-sol... Self-driving cars are new and shiny and all the rage, but they're nowhere near ready for production deployment en-mass, people still don't realize that no person can actually own a autonomous car (the inspection/maintenance cycle would need to be more strict than a small engine aircraft) and therefore they wouldn't be able to be modified in any way. For a fraction of the cost, American cities could revitalize and expand our crumbling rail infrastructure, which would be way more helpful than autonomous public car fleets.

cmurf 9y ago
I did say "part of" public transit. Clearly trains have a role in moving people from point A to F to M, and the in-between can be done with autonomous. And I don't have a 5-10 year pie in the sky idea of autonomous either, I'm thinking 25 years down the road. The point is car ownership itself is obsolete and it's not a big stretch for there to be a public car option. The road infra is already public, just like rail tracks and rail cars.
scarmig 9y ago
Maintenance is likely to be cheaper per mile for an autonomous car than a human driven one, though a combination of actually being on a regular cycle, dedicated fleet facilities, and better driving practices. As far as autonomous vs traditional public transit, it's a false dichotomy. Municipalities will use both when it comes to moving people around, because they're good for different use cases. You choose one particular metric where trains do win out, but that's an irrelevancy, because it's not even close to feasible to build a system of trains that do everything that cars currently are able to do.