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What I don't understand is why aren't companies pushing ahead with intermediate solutions on constrained paths that's more like public transport - imagine a sma

What I don't understand is why aren't companies pushing ahead with intermediate solutions on constrained paths that's more like public transport - imagine a small van or mini-bus carrying 4-10ish passengers that travels on well-mapped, public, main roads (and is allowed to use the bus lane). The main paths in big cities already go pretty close to big venues, and we could set up these paths in such a way that the pickup and dropoff point is at most a few minutes walk away from people's true destinations. It would serve as a replacement for public transport instead of a way of having your car drive itself (which isn't that big of a help considering the biggest issue with city driving is parking).

mindwok 3y ago
You have pretty much described what Waymo is doing. They use specific, pre-mapped zones only in certain conditions.
skywhopper 3y ago
How is this better than a regular bus?
- gadflyinyoureye 3y ago
  Theoretically you could have more on rotation at a time. Rather than have a whole bus that’s 25% full, you can have a few vans shuttling along the route. This should allow greater access since people don’t have to wait as long between buses. For example, the bus on my city are few. If I want to go to the grocery that is only a 8 miles await, the trip would take about 15 minutes by bike because there is no bus route to it. However mini vans on a known route could come get me most of the way.
lang4d 3y ago
There are a few companies around the world working on that sort of solution to the public transit problem (called autonomous Personal Rapid Transit), and one or two systems similar to what you’re describing that have been built. Open road autonomy has to deal with all sorts of unexpected situations, still has to contend with traffic (until all cars are communicating with all other cars… very very far in the future), and still quite unprofitable for the driverless robotaxi use case. PRT - and what it sounds like you’re suggesting - get around these types of problems: By operating in dedicated (fenced off) lanes, the perception and planning problems become trivial (especially if you put sensors on the roadway). With one company building and operating the system, coordination between vehicles becomes possible (with no pedestrians and stations off of the mainline, this means little traffic and still high throughput). Small, lightweight vehicles with reduced sensing/compute requirements are cheaper and require less road space (meaning cheaper infrastructure too) The main downsides I can think of being it would requiring walking to your final destination from the bus stop/station (but for public transit prices instead of Uber prices I’m sure that’d be an appealing option to many), and requires new (or at least dedicated) infrastructure which is a harder sell to companies and cities.

mindwok 3y ago

You have pretty much described what Waymo is doing. They use specific, pre-mapped zones only in certain conditions.

skywhopper 3y ago

How is this better than a regular bus?

gadflyinyoureye 3y ago
Theoretically you could have more on rotation at a time. Rather than have a whole bus that’s 25% full, you can have a few vans shuttling along the route. This should allow greater access since people don’t have to wait as long between buses. For example, the bus on my city are few. If I want to go to the grocery that is only a 8 miles await, the trip would take about 15 minutes by bike because there is no bus route to it. However mini vans on a known route could come get me most of the way.

lang4d 3y ago

There are a few companies around the world working on that sort of solution to the public transit problem (called autonomous Personal Rapid Transit), and one or two systems similar to what you’re describing that have been built. Open road autonomy has to deal with all sorts of unexpected situations, still has to contend with traffic (until all cars are communicating with all other cars… very very far in the future), and still quite unprofitable for the driverless robotaxi use case. PRT - and what it sounds like you’re suggesting - get around these types of problems: By operating in dedicated (fenced off) lanes, the perception and planning problems become trivial (especially if you put sensors on the roadway). With one company building and operating the system, coordination between vehicles becomes possible (with no pedestrians and stations off of the mainline, this means little traffic and still high throughput). Small, lightweight vehicles with reduced sensing/compute requirements are cheaper and require less road space (meaning cheaper infrastructure too) The main downsides I can think of being it would requiring walking to your final destination from the bus stop/station (but for public transit prices instead of Uber prices I’m sure that’d be an appealing option to many), and requires new (or at least dedicated) infrastructure which is a harder sell to companies and cities.