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It's kind of unimaginably worse... PRT has basically always assumed automation, with practical PRTs having very few implementation differences from AGT. But the

It's kind of unimaginably worse... PRT has basically always assumed automation, with practical PRTs having very few implementation differences from AGT. But the Boring solution is manually operated, so it's going to have all the downsides of PRT (really more since the boarding time is worse) with the extra operating expense of paying an operator for each vehicle. I wonder if it would be possible to fit a commercial AGT like Mitsubishi Crystal Mover into the Boring tunnels. They're wide enough I think but I don't know if the height clearance is sufficient. And of course AGTs are always constructed with a fire egress walkway which wouldn't fit, but Boring seems to have already accepted that significant safety limitation.

jcranmer 3y ago
> But the Boring solution is manually operated The intent is that it's supposed to be autonomous cars moving around, but it seems Elon vastly overestimated the speed with which autonomous cars can actually be delivered, so the manual operation is just a stopgap solution. Then again, it's pretty telling that he's struggling to recreate the features of systems developed 50 years ago.
- jandrese 3y ago
  Wait, the LV underground Teslas have to be manually driven? An enclosed track like that is basically ideal for self driving, there is no reason they shouldn't be able to do it with their current tech.
  - brookst 3y ago
    "Six killed in self-driving car pileup under Las Vegas" would be such bad PR for all involved that even someone as tone deaf as Elon probably has some cold feet.
  - ianburrell 3y ago
    The current Teslas in Convention Center tunnel have human drivers. The original plan was to have automated pods but that would have cost money. It might be possible to drive Tesla automated, but it is probably not easy to disconnect the drivers seat.
    - jandrese 3y ago
      Human drivers can't be cheap either, and they reduce the capacity of the vehicle by a whopping 25%. Or are the cars in self driving mode but still stuck with the driver alertness systems? That would be a terrible job, holding on the wheel of a self driving car in a tunnel all day long just to keep the self driving system from getting mad and stopping the car.
- jcrawfordor 3y ago
  It's hard for me not to view the situation as intentional. Conversion of buses to guideway operation has been done by local shops in several cases around the world. If you look at the tunnel design it seems that the small side curbs may have been intended to support side guidewheels similar to what many AGTs use. It's hard to believe that introducing at least steering guidance would have been that big of a project, but when you look at the stations it seems pretty clear that there was zero consideration of any kind of existing guidance technology. Sure, some of this can be attributed to a very hand-wavey "we'll do it in software," but it's hard for me to believe that automation was every seriously planned when they didn't build out mechanical steering guidance and design the stations for it. That's well-established technology going just about to WWII and the early Boeing APM experiments, and with a track record of shops doing semi-custom conversions of existing vehicles. Ultimately I think Boring/Tesla would introduce automation to the Las Vegas tunnels faster if they just bought a commercial moving-block system like Cityflo and adapted the vehicles. The fact that they don't seem to be pursuing this makes me think that the automation goal was never serious outside of its potential as a marketing tool for Tesla, which they are perhaps ironically also failing to deliver.

jcranmer 3y ago

> But the Boring solution is manually operated The intent is that it's supposed to be autonomous cars moving around, but it seems Elon vastly overestimated the speed with which autonomous cars can actually be delivered, so the manual operation is just a stopgap solution. Then again, it's pretty telling that he's struggling to recreate the features of systems developed 50 years ago.

jandrese 3y ago
Wait, the LV underground Teslas have to be manually driven? An enclosed track like that is basically ideal for self driving, there is no reason they shouldn't be able to do it with their current tech.
- brookst 3y ago
  "Six killed in self-driving car pileup under Las Vegas" would be such bad PR for all involved that even someone as tone deaf as Elon probably has some cold feet.
- ianburrell 3y ago
  The current Teslas in Convention Center tunnel have human drivers. The original plan was to have automated pods but that would have cost money. It might be possible to drive Tesla automated, but it is probably not easy to disconnect the drivers seat.
  - jandrese 3y ago
    Human drivers can't be cheap either, and they reduce the capacity of the vehicle by a whopping 25%. Or are the cars in self driving mode but still stuck with the driver alertness systems? That would be a terrible job, holding on the wheel of a self driving car in a tunnel all day long just to keep the self driving system from getting mad and stopping the car.
jcrawfordor 3y ago
It's hard for me not to view the situation as intentional. Conversion of buses to guideway operation has been done by local shops in several cases around the world. If you look at the tunnel design it seems that the small side curbs may have been intended to support side guidewheels similar to what many AGTs use. It's hard to believe that introducing at least steering guidance would have been that big of a project, but when you look at the stations it seems pretty clear that there was zero consideration of any kind of existing guidance technology. Sure, some of this can be attributed to a very hand-wavey "we'll do it in software," but it's hard for me to believe that automation was every seriously planned when they didn't build out mechanical steering guidance and design the stations for it. That's well-established technology going just about to WWII and the early Boeing APM experiments, and with a track record of shops doing semi-custom conversions of existing vehicles. Ultimately I think Boring/Tesla would introduce automation to the Las Vegas tunnels faster if they just bought a commercial moving-block system like Cityflo and adapted the vehicles. The fact that they don't seem to be pursuing this makes me think that the automation goal was never serious outside of its potential as a marketing tool for Tesla, which they are perhaps ironically also failing to deliver.