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Speechless? Where I live we have full size public buses that are frequently only carrying one or two people. In fact if I had a nickle for every time I've see

Speechless? Where I live we have full size public buses that are frequently only carrying one or two people. In fact if I had a nickle for every time I've seen a completely empty light rail train in the middle of the day in Denver, I'd be a rich man by now. Public transport in the vast majority of the US is a failure. In Colorado Uber and Lyft probably haul 10-100 times more people every day than ride our public transportation, that's not efficient at all. The main complaint people have is public transportation doesn't run often enough, or provide enough routes, self driving vehicles could fix that and make it economic for US cities. If you had smaller buses (sometimes called vans) you could run them more often and thus make them more appealing to the masses. Is it less efficient, yes, but if it gains more riders that's a net gain IMO.

anyfoo 6y ago
Why are you comparing your scheme to a defunct system, then? The cities in Europe I’ve lived in, and the cities in Asia I’ve visited, haven’t had that problem at all.
- fiftyfifty 6y ago
  Because there is a market there, actual money to be made, that would be a lot more realistic for companies like Cruise and Waymo to solve than some pie in the sky self driving car. They could have been working towards a public transportation system that doesn't require millions of dollars in capital construction costs to put in place first. But that's not as sexy I guess.
  - jmastrangelo 6y ago
    Agreed, the goal isn't to replace transit in places that are well suited to it, its to provide better transportation in all the places transit isn't well suited.
  - joking 6y ago
    It would be nice and easy just putting some sensors or special paint on the road, the problem is when those automatic vans share the same space than the rest of vehicles, you will have a crash frequently, in barcelona the light rail has crashed with several vehicles even when they don’t share the platform but on the intersections with crossing streets
CloudYeller 6y ago
I think the main complaint about US public transit is that it's dirty and dangerous. If it was super safe and clean in+around all stations and on all trains/buses at all times, people would definitely use it more often.

anyfoo 6y ago

Why are you comparing your scheme to a defunct system, then? The cities in Europe I’ve lived in, and the cities in Asia I’ve visited, haven’t had that problem at all.

fiftyfifty 6y ago
Because there is a market there, actual money to be made, that would be a lot more realistic for companies like Cruise and Waymo to solve than some pie in the sky self driving car. They could have been working towards a public transportation system that doesn't require millions of dollars in capital construction costs to put in place first. But that's not as sexy I guess.
- jmastrangelo 6y ago
  Agreed, the goal isn't to replace transit in places that are well suited to it, its to provide better transportation in all the places transit isn't well suited.
- joking 6y ago
  It would be nice and easy just putting some sensors or special paint on the road, the problem is when those automatic vans share the same space than the rest of vehicles, you will have a crash frequently, in barcelona the light rail has crashed with several vehicles even when they don’t share the platform but on the intersections with crossing streets

CloudYeller 6y ago

I think the main complaint about US public transit is that it's dirty and dangerous. If it was super safe and clean in+around all stations and on all trains/buses at all times, people would definitely use it more often.