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Agreed. You could also maybe have special tracks in these roads that the cars could attach to so they would not need tires. Additionally I bet you could link th

Agreed. You could also maybe have special tracks in these roads that the cars could attach to so they would not need tires. Additionally I bet you could link them together so the robots could carry hundreds of people at once. I bet you could even run them on a regular schedule so people can use them to commute on the regular.

fragmede 3y ago
That'll never work. People would have to move, using their feet, from where they are, to the common stationary meeting points that this special vehicle met at, which makes them far less convenient than taking a car which picks you up and drops you off right where you need to be. In places where things aren't very dense, this "stationary common meeting point" is liable to be far away from where the person needs to be. Furthermore, this "schedule" you talk about. In order for this proposed system to work, the "schedule" would really have to be more of a frequency than a set schedule. This means that there will need to be a large number of these special cars in order for them to run frequently. This will cost lots of money, far in excess of what any one rider could pay. So then it needs to be subsided by the government, who are reluctant to spend money on things, so it needs to be well supported as an important expense by the whole population. A population that already owns regular cars. So it might work in dense locales with a consencious population, aka Europe, but I don't forsee such a system gaining popularity in the US outside of dense urban environments, and even then. Besides, self driving cars, which are already here and work thanks to Waymo, don't need special roads or rails to run on.
- datatrashfire 3y ago
  I think the poster was being ironic. ie let's reinvent the train.
  - erik_seaberg 3y ago
    And the reply was a list of problems that trains aren't solving well.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    Poe's law strikes again!

fragmede 3y ago

That'll never work. People would have to move, using their feet, from where they are, to the common stationary meeting points that this special vehicle met at, which makes them far less convenient than taking a car which picks you up and drops you off right where you need to be. In places where things aren't very dense, this "stationary common meeting point" is liable to be far away from where the person needs to be. Furthermore, this "schedule" you talk about. In order for this proposed system to work, the "schedule" would really have to be more of a frequency than a set schedule. This means that there will need to be a large number of these special cars in order for them to run frequently. This will cost lots of money, far in excess of what any one rider could pay. So then it needs to be subsided by the government, who are reluctant to spend money on things, so it needs to be well supported as an important expense by the whole population. A population that already owns regular cars. So it might work in dense locales with a consencious population, aka Europe, but I don't forsee such a system gaining popularity in the US outside of dense urban environments, and even then. Besides, self driving cars, which are already here and work thanks to Waymo, don't need special roads or rails to run on.

datatrashfire 3y ago
I think the poster was being ironic. ie let's reinvent the train.
- erik_seaberg 3y ago
  And the reply was a list of problems that trains aren't solving well.
- fragmede 3y ago
  Poe's law strikes again!