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Some thoughts: I think rail adoption becomes a lot more feasible if people can summon self driving cars on demand. The problem with rail is that it's hard for p
by toasterlovin 7y ago
Some thoughts: I think rail adoption becomes a lot more feasible if people can summon self driving cars on demand. The problem with rail is that it's hard for people who are currently driving to get behind because its usefulness is dependent on how built out the network is and building out rail networks is slow and expensive. And while the network has low coverage, getting to and from rail stations is a pain in the ass. But if you can just hail an Uber or Lyft, but the Uber or Lyft is really cheap because it doesn't require a human driver, then getting to and from the rail station becomes a non-issue. And I think that can turn the all or nothing paradigm of rail as it currently exists into something where incremental progress is just as useful whether you're starting from 0% existing coverage or 80% existing coverage.
- majormajor 7y ago> But if you can just hail an Uber or Lyft, but the Uber or Lyft is really cheap because it doesn't require a human driver, then getting to and from the rail station becomes a non-issue. We're a long ways away from self driving cars being really cheap. That self driving Uber network would need a lot of capital investment that they initially were able to avoid because they piggybacked on drivers already having to own cars anyway.
- toasterlovin 7y agoI agree that A) the technology is not there, and B) it would require a lot of capital. I still think it's the most realistic approach to passenger rail utilization in most of the U.S. It will take decades to build out high coverage passenger rail in the U.S. That's a lot of time for technology to mature and for capital to be deployed.