4 ms·

In the US, with its suburbs and spread out cities, AV cars, microbuses and the lot definitely have a role to play. There’s no way around that. Where was your e

In the US, with its suburbs and spread out cities, AV cars, microbuses and the lot definitely have a role to play. There’s no way around that. Where was your experience for mass transit? The US? I live in Boston, which has one of the best mass transit systems in the US, but still it sucks as a general means to get around, or even to and from work for many people. But the US has extraordinarily poor mass transit overall. Budapest, Paris, Tokyo, Vienna, etc… have efficient, multi-layered, redundant mass transit that serves the population well as a general means to get around. It’s faster than the auto frequently even in non rush hour times. I don’t see (good) mass transit and AVs at odds with one another, but rather complimentary. Every auto off the road makes the remaining auto transit more efficient. Less autos on the road also frees up roads for bikes and pedestrian use, a big plus in denser urban environments in need of more green and public space.

cameldrv 2y ago
This was in the Bay Area, which has OK but not great transit. I used to live in Berlin though that has great transit, which I rode a lot, and it's still much slower than driving or taking a Taxi. Ultimately you just cannot get around the physics of it. If you have a 50 person vehicle, the average person is going to need to wait for 50 people to get on or off during their ride. In order to do that, they're going to have to make a bunch of stops. To do that, the vehicle has to slow down and speed up at a reasonable acceleration rate, so the average speed is necessarily much slower than the maximum speed. With fixed routes, you also cannot get around having to walk to and from the station/stop, and you can't get around having to wait at least some time for the vehicle to arrive. For most trips you also can't avoid having to do a transfer with more walking/waiting. The solution is less passengers per vehicle so there's less stopping, and dynamic routes so that there's less walking and less waiting. You can't really do door to door dynamic routes with lots of passengers, because you'd be going too far out of your way and it would be slow. This wasn't possible before because you had to pay a driver, but if a driver is low cost, the game is completely different.

cameldrv 2y ago

This was in the Bay Area, which has OK but not great transit. I used to live in Berlin though that has great transit, which I rode a lot, and it's still much slower than driving or taking a Taxi. Ultimately you just cannot get around the physics of it. If you have a 50 person vehicle, the average person is going to need to wait for 50 people to get on or off during their ride. In order to do that, they're going to have to make a bunch of stops. To do that, the vehicle has to slow down and speed up at a reasonable acceleration rate, so the average speed is necessarily much slower than the maximum speed. With fixed routes, you also cannot get around having to walk to and from the station/stop, and you can't get around having to wait at least some time for the vehicle to arrive. For most trips you also can't avoid having to do a transfer with more walking/waiting. The solution is less passengers per vehicle so there's less stopping, and dynamic routes so that there's less walking and less waiting. You can't really do door to door dynamic routes with lots of passengers, because you'd be going too far out of your way and it would be slow. This wasn't possible before because you had to pay a driver, but if a driver is low cost, the game is completely different.