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Have you never had the experience of being on a crawling train and counting the minutes after the meeting you were supposed to be at has already started?
by KKKKkkkk1 9y ago
Have you never had the experience of being on a crawling train and counting the minutes after the meeting you were supposed to be at has already started?
- dmix 9y agoWell technically you could be telepresence into the meeting because your car can be outfitted with a nice TV/monitor, audio recording equipment, and high speed wifi... so you can have meetings while you drive to work. Or you spend your quiet time in the car working, and instead use office time for meetings. Besides, in the hypothetical self-driving future the transit times will likely be far more predictable than it is today... with AI running and optimizing everything.
- blang 9y agoWe can already telepresence into the meeting. I moderately understand your argument, but I think the parent is talking about meetings you have to be in physically. And if your argument is "Why do you have to be there physically" I would counter that if you don't have to be there physically why do you ever need to get into a self driving car.
- throwaway76543 9y agoI can't telepresence into a meeting while I'm driving, or while I'm on public transit. Being able to videoconference during my commute would be an enormous boon.
- maccard 9y agoWhy not? We regularly have people join in in calls from home/on trains. They just have to mute when they're not speaking.
- kosievdmerwe 9y agoBecause confidential information is a thing.
- fixermark 9y agoI'm curious what Utopia you live in that has network coverage reliable enough in subway tunnels or on trains going through rural communities to make teleconferencing from mass transit a tractable solution. ;) (No, but more seriously: I'm a bit envious that this is working for your teams. It's completely impractical in the East Coast US cities I've frequented).
- freeone3000 9y agoMontreal->Toronto corridor has complete coverage (unless you take the route through Windsor). 4G LTE the entire way.
- redfern314 9y agoIn the SF Bay Area, Caltrain is aboveground and is more than quiet enough to call into meetings. Think NYC's MetroNorth, there's no reason you wouldn't be able to make a call until you get into the tunnels near Manhattan. On the other hand, BART is underground with signal repeaters just about all the way through - but it's very noisy so you could call in and listen but probably not contribute. If your transit system is underground without repeaters though, I agree that you're out of luck. I can't imagine trying to take a call on the T.
- audreyt 9y agoHere in Taiwan, we also offer free Wi-Fi access across the High Speed Rails system (~180mph, ~200 miles of coverage), reliable enough even in tunnels, as of this year.
- ShorsHammer 9y ago> in the hypothetical self-driving future In suburbia/regional areas certainly, but most large cities are already heavily congested, how many more people could possibly fit in peak hours? As optimised as we can make it, there's still a predictable one-directional crush every day. The real optimisation of roads would be incentivising companies to make their employees start/finish outside of work hours. A self-driving future will likely still heavily involve public transport in the short term at least. Hopefully fully autonomous vehicles will get far smaller, travelling pods which are both cheap to buy and maintain, much like a motorbike but without the downsides that turn most people off. Smaller vehicles, especially trucks will quickly be needed to reduce road wear and offset the likely cost of greater road usage. Smaller personal transportation would also be a boon to road efficiency.
- dmix 9y agoUltimately the key point is predictability. Being able to plan when your meeting will be. Even if congestion doesn't change or gets worse, the point is that it will be easier to plan as trip times become more predictable thanks to machines. That way you won't be late for meetings. as the OP inmplied. Selfing driving + fleet cars will most certainly reduce the average car size. People buy 4-5 seats for the edge cases when they might need to pick up some friends or more than one child at a time, or merely because it's the most common type of vehicle available, which people buy out of habit or whatever social reason. But looking at car on any highway and you'll only find more then 1-2 drivers a minority of the time. When we eliminate the need to buy a single car for all general use-cases, and have a high quantity of self-driving Uber style cars available, then 1-2 seater cars with become the most popular size. Which in itself with reduce climate damage and increase capacities on roads. Especially as self-driving cars can drive at higher speeds and closer together, potentially linking up like trains for long-distance rides.
- meri_dian 9y agoI have been unfortunate enough to have that experience. Being on a commuter train is like being a sardine packed into a can though. I imagine fully autonomous vehicles will offer more comfort.
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- komali2 9y agoYes, it's wonderful, I get to not attend the meeting and blame it on something that nobody can lambaste me for blaming :D
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago> blame it on something that nobody can lambaste me for blaming I once had somebody pull this shtick for being late to a meeting. I put it in the same category as using "traffic" as an excuse. Disasters which make the news are acceptable. Routine inconveniences causing one delays are okay, once in a while, but never if treated as an immunity against criticism. One should have planned better, by leaving earlier or taking another mode of transportation. Then there are the characters who leave the office late and blame it on traffic every time.
- squeaky-clean 9y agoWell I assumed the example in GP's case is some kind of notable breakdown or delay. If you're just late because you don't account for random 10 minute delays in the trains and such, that's entirely your fault, as much as being late because an accident slowed down highway traffic today. But if your train is stuck in the middle of a tunnel for 3 hours because a crazy person ran onto the track and authorities are chasing them, that's a pretty fair excuse.
- jes5199 9y agomaybe you should consider scheduling your meetings at a resonable time
- JumpCrisscross 9y agoIn my experience, chronic lateness is a function of the person. The person who is late at 9am will be late at 6pm or when they choose the time or when it's a block from them or a city and a half away. (Note: I used to be this person when I was younger. I now leave for any meeting in my city one hour before and then hang out until the start time.)
- staz 9y agoYup. Best case I meditate worst case I get angry. What I never do however is get distracted by being angry while driving one ton of steel...
- dopamean 9y agoYou're not going to feel any better if you're late in your car on the way to the meeting. I take the bus every day to work even though in total it takes exactly twice as long than if I took my motorcycle? Why because I like to read on the bus. It's not actually important to me to get there any quicker. In fact on days I have earlier meetings I just leave my apartment earlier. I think the idea that people wouldn't mind going slower may be real for a lot of people.
- joe_the_user 9y agoIt seems you're confusing the effects of travel being slow with the effects of travel being unreliable. It's not the slowness of a train that's annoying you, it's that the train has slowed unpredictably. That said, I suppose there's every reason to think traffic impacts of self-driving cars (more cars circling, waiting for passengers) would make traffic slower and more unpredictable. Edit: And, of course, the people in the non-self-driving cars would get the slowness without any direct benefit to themselves.