4 ms·

They seem to have little in common, aside from the fact that both get people from A to B with relatively little attention required on the part of the people. H

by necubi 15y ago

They seem to have little in common, aside from the fact that both get people from A to B with relatively little attention required on the part of the people. High speed rail is: (a) Vastly more efficient (b) Much faster (SF -> LA in < 3 hours, versus ~6.5 for a car) (c) Not subject to traffic (which can greatly increase the latter time) (d) Much more comfortable (compare Amtrak to a private automobile) How do autonomous cars overcome these deficiencies?

gfodor 15y ago
One can probably presume by the time autonomous cars are mainstream that all of these might all be the case. Fully automated highways will probably have vehicles that look and feel nothing like the cars of today.
mkramlich 15y ago
Trains and buses suffers from last mile problems on each end. And you sometimes/often have to share an air space with rude, dirty, sometimes crazy people. Not so with individual vehicles. Now make them electric (to reduce pollution and enabling the getting off of fossil fuels) and automated (to reduce frequency of accidents, and wear-and-tear caused by aggressive driving, etc, etc.) and the trade-offs can look attractive.
- bsimpson 15y ago
  Admittedly, I'm no expert on electric cars, but they always make me feel like the emperor isn't wearing any clothes. Electricity is frequently generated by fossil fuels like coal. Electric cars don't reduce pollution, they just move it to wherever the coal is being burned. You have to get the electricity to the car from the far-away power plant, which means you're going to suffer from transmission loss (e.g. not every watt that is generated is going to make it to your drivetrain). Finally, we suck at making batteries. They're still big heavy lumps of highly toxic materials that wear out in relatively short amounts of time. What do you do with all the exhausted batteries? Like everyone, I'm all for making our infrastructure more environmentally-friendly. Sadly, I'm not convinced electric vehicles are anywhere close to where we'd need them to be. I feel like we have a lot of misplaced enthusiasm from people who want to clean up the industrial age a lot sooner than we realistically can.
  - bdonlan 15y ago
    Moving the electrical generation to a central point allows you to build more sustainable power plants that only really work at scale - just try building a windmill on a single car, or a nuclear plant that can fir in your trunk.
  - georgieporgie 15y ago
    Electric cars don't reduce pollution They most certainly do. Even the latest, most wonderfully advanced gasoline engines are positively filthy compared to a modern coal plant, which is positive filthy compared to a nuclear plant, which is positively filthy compared to a solar/wind/wave plant.
    - ars 15y ago
      You have that last one backwards, nuclear is cleaner than solar/wind/wave, because you are forgetting just how much land those need.
      - georgieporgie 15y ago
        How does land use have anything to do with pollution?
        ars 15y ago
        Because you have to construct them, and it takes a ton of energy to do so. The construction process also produces a lot of waste.
        easp 15y ago
        You aren't taking into consideration the vast amounts of concrete and steel that go into a nuclear plant, nor the mining and refining of the uranium, nor, for that matter, it's disposal. Further, I think you are overestimating the impact of building and deploying wind turbines. They may require a lot of land, but their physical footprint is pretty small, and most of the land around them can be used for other purposes, like agriculture.
- jowiar 15y ago
  >> And you sometimes/often have to share an air space with rude, dirty, sometimes crazy people. Oh come on. God forbid you are ever forced to interact with another human. The bubbleization of "society" is a concept that we are better served by fighting, not further embracing. Sure, there are some crazies on public transportation. I also met one of my best friends on a train. On the whole, the balance of public-transportation-riders I've interacted with has yielded far more beneficial interactions than negative ones. This as compared to my fellow car-commuters, whom which interactions generally fell on a spectrum between honks and extended medial digits.
ticks 15y ago
I guess the two could compliment each other if the automated cars were more like taxis, and their main purpose was to move people to and from train stations. That's the biggest problem I can see with train travel in the US... the country is too spread out so you need some sort of flexible integrated travel to support the trains.
ceejayoz 15y ago
b) and c) might wind up solved by reduced traffic jams, and d) assumes cars wouldn't change any once becoming autonomous.
natesm 15y ago
The other benefit is that I don't have to own a train (although that would be quite awesome). Buying monthly Metrocards for a year will cost you about $1200, significantly less than car payments, gas, insurance payments, repair payments, ...
temphn 15y ago
> (a) Vastly more efficient But without occupancy/ridership figures and precise fuel consumption statistics (including the amortized energy expenditure used to build the train), it is not at all obvious that trains beat cars from a fuel-efficiency-per-passenger standpoint. Given the price tag on the train, it is not obvious that it is more efficient from a cost-efficiency-per-passenger standpoint either. > (b) Much faster (SF -> LA in < 3 hours, versus ~6.5 for a car) But the door-to-door time is what truly matters. You aren't factoring in travel time to and from the train station, or wait time at the stations. > (c) Not subject to traffic (which can greatly increase the latter time) As noted above, the first and last legs (involving getting to the train station) are subject to traffic. The train leg itself is subject to wait times as it won't be running 24/7 with a new train leaving every minute. In addition, there will likely be nontrivial TSA/VIPER security checkpoints that will further slow down travel. http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/06/tsa-swarms-8000-bus- stations-public-transit-systems-yearly Think you could avoid the TSA's body scanners and pat- downs by taking Amtrak? Think again. > (d) Much more comfortable (compare Amtrak to a private automobile) This is highly arguable. You can directly control the cleanliness/comfort/appearance of your own automobile, but you cannot control the cleanliness of public transport. Moreover, you can leave items overnight in your car, play music without headphones, and have a full volume conversation on a hands-free headset (or with a passenger) without someone else overhearing. You can't do this on a train.
- Anechoic 15y ago
  >In addition, there will likely be nontrivial TSA/VIPER security checkpoints that will further slow down travel. If Amtrak's experience is any indication, this won't be an issue: http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/t/188504.aspx?PageIndex=1 http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/t/188504.aspx?PageIndex=1
  - temphn 15y ago
    Unfortunately, VIPR does not seem to be going away. Your article was from March of this year in Savannah. As is common practice at most federal agencies, TSA paused the program for a bit till the outcry blew over. Then they started it up again. Take a look at this clip from October. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/10/like-tsa-youll-love-vipr/247221/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/10/like-tsa... "Today's VIPR searches did not come from any particular threat" "Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane more likely on the interstate," said Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons. http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/10/28/1921254/tsas-vipr-bites-rail-bus-and-ferry-passengers http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/10/28/1921254/tsas-vipr-bi... According to TSA Administrator John Pistole's testimony before the Senate last June, 'TSA conducted more than 8,000 VIPR operations in the [previous] 12 months, including more than 3,700 operations in mass-transit and passenger-railroad venues.' He wants a 50% budget increase for VIPR for 2012. Imagine what TSA would do with the extra funding." The TSA Administrator himself says 3700 operations were done "in mass-transit and passenger-railroad venues". One of them got blogged, which is why there was an outcry and temporary pullback. But major news stations have just ignored this or bent over (see the Tennessee report above), though even the VIPR name is like a parody from a bad movie. Any train that costs $XX billion dollars is going to be deemed a terrorist target, so you can expect insane TSA/VIPR searches. This will further erode any purported time/convenience advantages.
easp 15y ago
For one thing, autonomous cars can, theoretically, increase the practical carrying capacity of individual roadways, they can also better utilize the capacity of road networks by routing vehicles to underutilized roads. This would mitigate the impact of traffic. For the same reasons they can increase practical carrying capacity, they can also increase practical fuel efficiency, because the vehicles can be kept moving at a near constant speed with minimal breaking.

by necubi 15y ago

gfodor 15y ago

One can probably presume by the time autonomous cars are mainstream that all of these might all be the case. Fully automated highways will probably have vehicles that look and feel nothing like the cars of today.

mkramlich 15y ago

Trains and buses suffers from last mile problems on each end. And you sometimes/often have to share an air space with rude, dirty, sometimes crazy people. Not so with individual vehicles. Now make them electric (to reduce pollution and enabling the getting off of fossil fuels) and automated (to reduce frequency of accidents, and wear-and-tear caused by aggressive driving, etc, etc.) and the trade-offs can look attractive.

bsimpson 15y ago
Admittedly, I'm no expert on electric cars, but they always make me feel like the emperor isn't wearing any clothes. Electricity is frequently generated by fossil fuels like coal. Electric cars don't reduce pollution, they just move it to wherever the coal is being burned. You have to get the electricity to the car from the far-away power plant, which means you're going to suffer from transmission loss (e.g. not every watt that is generated is going to make it to your drivetrain). Finally, we suck at making batteries. They're still big heavy lumps of highly toxic materials that wear out in relatively short amounts of time. What do you do with all the exhausted batteries? Like everyone, I'm all for making our infrastructure more environmentally-friendly. Sadly, I'm not convinced electric vehicles are anywhere close to where we'd need them to be. I feel like we have a lot of misplaced enthusiasm from people who want to clean up the industrial age a lot sooner than we realistically can.
- bdonlan 15y ago
  Moving the electrical generation to a central point allows you to build more sustainable power plants that only really work at scale - just try building a windmill on a single car, or a nuclear plant that can fir in your trunk.
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  Electric cars don't reduce pollution They most certainly do. Even the latest, most wonderfully advanced gasoline engines are positively filthy compared to a modern coal plant, which is positive filthy compared to a nuclear plant, which is positively filthy compared to a solar/wind/wave plant.
  - ars 15y ago
    You have that last one backwards, nuclear is cleaner than solar/wind/wave, because you are forgetting just how much land those need.
    - georgieporgie 15y ago
      How does land use have anything to do with pollution?
      - ars 15y ago
        Because you have to construct them, and it takes a ton of energy to do so. The construction process also produces a lot of waste.
        easp 15y ago
        You aren't taking into consideration the vast amounts of concrete and steel that go into a nuclear plant, nor the mining and refining of the uranium, nor, for that matter, it's disposal. Further, I think you are overestimating the impact of building and deploying wind turbines. They may require a lot of land, but their physical footprint is pretty small, and most of the land around them can be used for other purposes, like agriculture.
jowiar 15y ago
>> And you sometimes/often have to share an air space with rude, dirty, sometimes crazy people. Oh come on. God forbid you are ever forced to interact with another human. The bubbleization of "society" is a concept that we are better served by fighting, not further embracing. Sure, there are some crazies on public transportation. I also met one of my best friends on a train. On the whole, the balance of public-transportation-riders I've interacted with has yielded far more beneficial interactions than negative ones. This as compared to my fellow car-commuters, whom which interactions generally fell on a spectrum between honks and extended medial digits.

ticks 15y ago

I guess the two could compliment each other if the automated cars were more like taxis, and their main purpose was to move people to and from train stations. That's the biggest problem I can see with train travel in the US... the country is too spread out so you need some sort of flexible integrated travel to support the trains.

ceejayoz 15y ago

b) and c) might wind up solved by reduced traffic jams, and d) assumes cars wouldn't change any once becoming autonomous.

natesm 15y ago

The other benefit is that I don't have to own a train (although that would be quite awesome). Buying monthly Metrocards for a year will cost you about $1200, significantly less than car payments, gas, insurance payments, repair payments, ...

temphn 15y ago

> (a) Vastly more efficient But without occupancy/ridership figures and precise fuel consumption statistics (including the amortized energy expenditure used to build the train), it is not at all obvious that trains beat cars from a fuel-efficiency-per-passenger standpoint. Given the price tag on the train, it is not obvious that it is more efficient from a cost-efficiency-per-passenger standpoint either. > (b) Much faster (SF -> LA in < 3 hours, versus ~6.5 for a car) But the door-to-door time is what truly matters. You aren't factoring in travel time to and from the train station, or wait time at the stations. > (c) Not subject to traffic (which can greatly increase the latter time) As noted above, the first and last legs (involving getting to the train station) are subject to traffic. The train leg itself is subject to wait times as it won't be running 24/7 with a new train leaving every minute. In addition, there will likely be nontrivial TSA/VIPER security checkpoints that will further slow down travel. http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/06/tsa-swarms-8000-bus- stations-public-transit-systems-yearly Think you could avoid the TSA's body scanners and pat- downs by taking Amtrak? Think again. > (d) Much more comfortable (compare Amtrak to a private automobile) This is highly arguable. You can directly control the cleanliness/comfort/appearance of your own automobile, but you cannot control the cleanliness of public transport. Moreover, you can leave items overnight in your car, play music without headphones, and have a full volume conversation on a hands-free headset (or with a passenger) without someone else overhearing. You can't do this on a train.

Anechoic 15y ago
>In addition, there will likely be nontrivial TSA/VIPER security checkpoints that will further slow down travel. If Amtrak's experience is any indication, this won't be an issue: http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/t/188504.aspx?PageIndex=1 http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/t/188504.aspx?PageIndex=1
- temphn 15y ago
  Unfortunately, VIPR does not seem to be going away. Your article was from March of this year in Savannah. As is common practice at most federal agencies, TSA paused the program for a bit till the outcry blew over. Then they started it up again. Take a look at this clip from October. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/10/like-tsa-youll-love-vipr/247221/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/10/like-tsa... "Today's VIPR searches did not come from any particular threat" "Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane more likely on the interstate," said Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons. http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/10/28/1921254/tsas-vipr-bites-rail-bus-and-ferry-passengers http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/10/28/1921254/tsas-vipr-bi... According to TSA Administrator John Pistole's testimony before the Senate last June, 'TSA conducted more than 8,000 VIPR operations in the [previous] 12 months, including more than 3,700 operations in mass-transit and passenger-railroad venues.' He wants a 50% budget increase for VIPR for 2012. Imagine what TSA would do with the extra funding." The TSA Administrator himself says 3700 operations were done "in mass-transit and passenger-railroad venues". One of them got blogged, which is why there was an outcry and temporary pullback. But major news stations have just ignored this or bent over (see the Tennessee report above), though even the VIPR name is like a parody from a bad movie. Any train that costs $XX billion dollars is going to be deemed a terrorist target, so you can expect insane TSA/VIPR searches. This will further erode any purported time/convenience advantages.

easp 15y ago

For one thing, autonomous cars can, theoretically, increase the practical carrying capacity of individual roadways, they can also better utilize the capacity of road networks by routing vehicles to underutilized roads. This would mitigate the impact of traffic. For the same reasons they can increase practical carrying capacity, they can also increase practical fuel efficiency, because the vehicles can be kept moving at a near constant speed with minimal breaking.