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In fact, many transit systems do combine delivery and passenger vehicles -- greyhound has a package delivery service. To your other point: I think that assumin

by wcarss 15y ago

In fact, many transit systems do combine delivery and passenger vehicles -- greyhound has a package delivery service. To your other point: I think that assuming we'll go off the wall and design wacky new vehicles is too optimistic, akin to the "cities of the future" envisioned during the past hundred years. People's sensibilities of "what makes a car look nice" and "what is a metal box I'd like to sit in" seem to be pretty set, and we don't have a very different experience in a train or on a bus today than in a car. Face forward or backward in a seat with big windows and high visibility. Part of that is for your senses to not freak out, part of it is just that it's cheap and easy, and part of it is that experiments in the form-factor don't need to be done, so they aren't done. I expect the same trend will continue unless flukes occur.

learc83 15y ago
>In fact, many transit systems do combine delivery and passenger vehicles -- greyhound has a package delivery service. I didn't know that about greyhound. I'm aware that airliners routinely carry packages. I was thinking more, you've got a car coming to your house every morning, let's throw your Amazon.com orders on it. >design wacky new vehicles I'm not thinking wacky designs. A car is usually designed to be sat in for a certain length of time. They aren't really designed for very long trips without stopping frequently, since driverless cars make long trips much more appealing, they'll have to be redesigned to an extent. A fleet of rental cars would be much more efficient if each car held say 10 people instead of 4, so another natural redesign. > "what makes a car look nice" To many people, a car becomes part of their identity, not so much with a temporary rental, so I think function starts to trump form >don't have a very different experience in a train or on a bus today than in a car I think the experience in a long distance train is very different than in a car. The main difference is compartments, and that's what I envision for cars. I'm not talking anything radical, just what I think would be natural progressions when you remove the need for a driver.
- brc 15y ago
  A 10 person vehicle necessarily needs to be larger and have a more powerful drivetrain so it would be less efficient in the dead miles it has to drive to get around and pick people up. So I don't see that 10-person vehicles would become the norm. I would actually see it going the other way, and that 2 person vehicles the size of a smart would actually become the norm. Most people currently have excess seating capacity (5) for the few occasions when they need it. But with driverless cars, you don't need that, because you can spread the load over several cars. Why drive a 10 capacity car around for the odd case where 10 people need to go to the one location, rather than 5 2 person cars that can assemble when needed to cart 10 people on the same trip.

by wcarss 15y ago

learc83 15y ago

>In fact, many transit systems do combine delivery and passenger vehicles -- greyhound has a package delivery service. I didn't know that about greyhound. I'm aware that airliners routinely carry packages. I was thinking more, you've got a car coming to your house every morning, let's throw your Amazon.com orders on it. >design wacky new vehicles I'm not thinking wacky designs. A car is usually designed to be sat in for a certain length of time. They aren't really designed for very long trips without stopping frequently, since driverless cars make long trips much more appealing, they'll have to be redesigned to an extent. A fleet of rental cars would be much more efficient if each car held say 10 people instead of 4, so another natural redesign. > "what makes a car look nice" To many people, a car becomes part of their identity, not so much with a temporary rental, so I think function starts to trump form >don't have a very different experience in a train or on a bus today than in a car I think the experience in a long distance train is very different than in a car. The main difference is compartments, and that's what I envision for cars. I'm not talking anything radical, just what I think would be natural progressions when you remove the need for a driver.

brc 15y ago
A 10 person vehicle necessarily needs to be larger and have a more powerful drivetrain so it would be less efficient in the dead miles it has to drive to get around and pick people up. So I don't see that 10-person vehicles would become the norm. I would actually see it going the other way, and that 2 person vehicles the size of a smart would actually become the norm. Most people currently have excess seating capacity (5) for the few occasions when they need it. But with driverless cars, you don't need that, because you can spread the load over several cars. Why drive a 10 capacity car around for the odd case where 10 people need to go to the one location, rather than 5 2 person cars that can assemble when needed to cart 10 people on the same trip.