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This view seems deeply flawed. One of the upsides of public transportation is that I can read / sleep / work / talk with people with 0 distractions. The downsid

This view seems deeply flawed. One of the upsides of public transportation is that I can read / sleep / work / talk with people with 0 distractions. The downside is that the commute is 3-5 times longer. If I can get the shorter commute time of my car AND have the benefits of not having to pay attention, that's a huge gain even if my travel time isn't any faster. Additionally, there are plenty of use cases that don't rely on interaction. Ideally, my car can drop me off at the door to the grocery store and go park itself and then come pick me up when I text it that I'm ready to go home.

cake 16y ago
Imagine cars on demand. You don't own a car, you text a car to get you to work at 8:30, the car picks you up at home, drops you off (no parking space required) and goes on to the next ride. I can't wait to see driverless cars.
- StavrosK 16y ago
  That's an ingenious concept! I will start a company like that right now, I will call them... Taxis!
  - cake 16y ago
    Yes almost like a taxi, what I meant to say is that today you don't drive to work in a taxi because they are so expensive most of the time or inconvenient because few are available. If driverless cars became maintream I'm pretty sure it would drastically decrease the price of such commutes thus changing the way we own a car today.
- antihero 16y ago
  Almost like a taxi? I guess with driverless it's more like cloud carpooling.
  - natrius 16y ago
    It'd be cheaper than a taxi since there's no driver to pay.
    - mdonahoe 16y ago
      Yeah. Just buy the car first. And automated car insurance. And the monthly fee for internet connectivity so the car can get data from google.
- mortenjorck 16y ago
  It's called PRT (personal rapid transit) and in my view, it's the one glimmer of hope in turning a century's worth of investment in automobile infrastructure from a liability into an asset. It's a fantastic idea that's gaining some limited traction in places like London Heathrow (http://www.ultraprt.com/prt/ http://www.ultraprt.com/prt/), where hopefully it can gain enough of a foothold to expand. Right now, PRT systems tend to use their own rights-of-way, but with the advent of true driverless cars, all that could change.
DanielStraight 16y ago
The comparison to current public transportation is unfair. First, imagine what public transportation would be like today if as much money had been invested as has been invested in cars. There are more licensed vehicles in the U.S. than there are licensed drivers. Cars simply cannot beat public transportation in raw material use, operating cost or road space utilization. My car occupies 70 sq ft of road space. At most, it can fit 5 people. That's 14 sq ft per person. A typical bus uses half that (calculated from an MCI D series). Since raw material use is more dependent on the volume, the savings will be even greater there. My car gets 30 miles per gallon. Fully loaded, that's 150 person-miles per gallon. A fully loaded bus beats that even if it only get 3 miles per gallon. However, since buses run standard routes, they can be wired directly to the power grid, eliminating the need for separate fuel and eliminating the need for the batteries than an electric car needs. And this is with current technology, developed despite substantially more money being spent on cars and highways. The reason your commute is faster with a car is that there aren't enough buses/trains. Vehicles with dedicated routes (such as trains and buses driving on bus-only roads) don't get caught in traffic. If they were comparably common, there's no way you could beat them on time either.
- mortenjorck 16y ago
  First, imagine what public transportation would be like today if as much money had been invested as has been invested in cars. Honestly, I do this all too often. What if the American passenger railroad system had never been left to die? What if the Big Three hadn't bought up streetcar services all over the country and run them into the ground? What if we'd been investing money for the past half century in making advances in new rail technology instead of trying to make dangerous cars slightly less dangerous? The intermittent dialog about high-speed rail here brings to mind an obese diabetic who has resolved that he definitely needs to start going to the gym one of these days. Ok, I think I'm done ranting.

cake 16y ago

Imagine cars on demand. You don't own a car, you text a car to get you to work at 8:30, the car picks you up at home, drops you off (no parking space required) and goes on to the next ride. I can't wait to see driverless cars.

StavrosK 16y ago
That's an ingenious concept! I will start a company like that right now, I will call them... Taxis!
- cake 16y ago
  Yes almost like a taxi, what I meant to say is that today you don't drive to work in a taxi because they are so expensive most of the time or inconvenient because few are available. If driverless cars became maintream I'm pretty sure it would drastically decrease the price of such commutes thus changing the way we own a car today.
antihero 16y ago
Almost like a taxi? I guess with driverless it's more like cloud carpooling.
- natrius 16y ago
  It'd be cheaper than a taxi since there's no driver to pay.
  - mdonahoe 16y ago
    Yeah. Just buy the car first. And automated car insurance. And the monthly fee for internet connectivity so the car can get data from google.
mortenjorck 16y ago
It's called PRT (personal rapid transit) and in my view, it's the one glimmer of hope in turning a century's worth of investment in automobile infrastructure from a liability into an asset. It's a fantastic idea that's gaining some limited traction in places like London Heathrow (http://www.ultraprt.com/prt/ http://www.ultraprt.com/prt/), where hopefully it can gain enough of a foothold to expand. Right now, PRT systems tend to use their own rights-of-way, but with the advent of true driverless cars, all that could change.

DanielStraight 16y ago

The comparison to current public transportation is unfair. First, imagine what public transportation would be like today if as much money had been invested as has been invested in cars. There are more licensed vehicles in the U.S. than there are licensed drivers. Cars simply cannot beat public transportation in raw material use, operating cost or road space utilization. My car occupies 70 sq ft of road space. At most, it can fit 5 people. That's 14 sq ft per person. A typical bus uses half that (calculated from an MCI D series). Since raw material use is more dependent on the volume, the savings will be even greater there. My car gets 30 miles per gallon. Fully loaded, that's 150 person-miles per gallon. A fully loaded bus beats that even if it only get 3 miles per gallon. However, since buses run standard routes, they can be wired directly to the power grid, eliminating the need for separate fuel and eliminating the need for the batteries than an electric car needs. And this is with current technology, developed despite substantially more money being spent on cars and highways. The reason your commute is faster with a car is that there aren't enough buses/trains. Vehicles with dedicated routes (such as trains and buses driving on bus-only roads) don't get caught in traffic. If they were comparably common, there's no way you could beat them on time either.

mortenjorck 16y ago
First, imagine what public transportation would be like today if as much money had been invested as has been invested in cars. Honestly, I do this all too often. What if the American passenger railroad system had never been left to die? What if the Big Three hadn't bought up streetcar services all over the country and run them into the ground? What if we'd been investing money for the past half century in making advances in new rail technology instead of trying to make dangerous cars slightly less dangerous? The intermittent dialog about high-speed rail here brings to mind an obese diabetic who has resolved that he definitely needs to start going to the gym one of these days. Ok, I think I'm done ranting.