5 ms·
We’ve actually had nearly self driving vehicles for over a century. They’re called trains. We should invest in some. The navigation problem gets way easier
by barbariangrunge 3y ago
We’ve actually had nearly self driving vehicles for over a century. They’re called trains. We should invest in some. The navigation problem gets way easier
- Spivak 3y agoDriverless trains are actually a pretty new thing, being on tracks is not as set/forget as people assume. If you mean "transportation where I'm not driving" then sure but taxis also fit that bill.
- katbyte 3y agoSky train in Vancouver bc has been driverless for near 40 years now
- DanielVZ 3y agoSubway trains have been able to be autonomous since at least a decade.
- masswerk 3y agoParis Metro introduced driverless on all their MP 55 train sets in 1967.
- brooke2k 3y agoProportionally, they are far, far closer to self driving even with multiple people driving the train. A ratio of just 1:100 drivers:passengers is a vast improvement on personal cars which would probably be what, 1:1? Maybe 1:2 on average?
- LelouBil 3y agoParis had it's first fully automated subway line in 1998. Today there are 2 fully automated ones and one other mixing manual and automated. The sofware was developped by Matra transport international (now Siemens Mobility). It can even dynamically add/remove trains in service to best match the demand ! It also apparently uses a 48 bit cpu architecture. [0] https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syst%C3%A8me_d%27automatisation_de_l%27exploitation_des_trains https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syst%C3%A8me_d%27automatisat...
- Longhanks 3y agoDo you have a train station in front of your house and any target destination you can imagine wanting to go to? Because most people don't.
- PartiallyTyped 3y agoMaybe if we built more of those, more people would be within walking distance of them.
- ImprobableTruth 3y agoTrains for local transportation make no sense. Trams for high-throughput and buses for everything else is the only sensible thing for local public transport.
- mitthrowaway2 3y agoWorks well in Japan.
- Sargos 3y agoWhen I was in Japan a decade ago trains were only used between cities. I doubt that's changed.
- mitthrowaway2 3y agoI can't fathom how you got this impression. It would be like a visitor to the US saying that in their experience, cars are only used for travel between cities.
- School-Cotton 3y ago> Trains for local transportation make no sense. Plenty of people take trains for local transportation every day.
- PartiallyTyped 3y ago
- andylynch 3y agoMost trains are far from self driving; training to operate one is easily 6-12 months work, depending on the line, with strict licensing as well.
- fastball 3y agoI seem to remember there being a number of drain derailments lately. Hardly a great safety record compared to either Mercedes' or Tesla's systems.
- aziaziazi 3y agoLet’s see the fatalities per billion passenger km: Rail: 0.09 Car: 2.52 https://international-railway-safety-council.com/safety-statistics/ https://international-railway-safety-council.com/safety-stat... (eu data)
- fastball 3y agoHow many fatalities have the aforementioned car systems had? Also European trains seem to run much, much safer than American ones (the derailments I was talking about were in the US), so doesn't seem like the best comparison either.
- aziaziazi 3y agoIndeed, it seems the ratio of fatalities for rail/cars is around 1:25 in EU (see above) and 1:10 in USA [0]. Comparing those data, driving is also much safer in the EU: death rate per 100M passenger for cars in 2021: 0.57. Multiply par 10 (100M to 1B) and divide by 1.6 (miles to km) = 3.5625. Rate in EU = 2.52. Your right to point out those numbers aren’t split by driving assist options. Until that (still imaginary) future with +95% AV it seems hard to beat that 1:10 ratio, even more with vehicles weight steadily increase [1] [0] https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/deaths-by-transportation-mode/ https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics... [1] https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/explore-automotive-trends-data https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/explore-automotive-tre... (select « weight » then « cars » for regulatory class and vehicle type)