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> you literally can't fit these cars in the city if you want to transport people to work and from work every day. There is no physical capacity for that There'
by triceratops 1y ago
> you literally can't fit these cars in the city if you want to transport people to work and from work every day. There is no physical capacity for that
There's no space for 4-seater sedans each carrying a single person. How about tiny 1-seater self-driving golf carts going no more than 30mph? They take up as much space as 2 bus seats. This is ok because you're saving the space from the bus's aisle and driver compartment, and because buses rarely run completely full so they already waste some space.
These vehicles don't exist today. But I bet you could design and build them much cheaper than subway systems in most North American cities. These cities tend to be less dense than European or Asian cities, where trams and subways are more economical.
- Grimblewald 1y ago"this is ok because..." you might want to think a bit longer on the inefficiencies here.
- triceratops 1y agoDo tell... I see half-empty city buses running all the time and no one says boo about "inefficiencies" then. And even then city buses outside of dense metros run no more frequently than every 15 minutes, but only during rush hour, and only on popular routes. That's no way to get everyone loving public transport. I want to take public transport. I don't want to spend hours waiting for the bus. I don't want to wait 20 years for a subway to be built either. What do I do? The only answer is more frequent, smaller buses. But drivers are expensive. So then self-driving buses. And if the buses drive themselves, you really want to them to be completely full, all the time. What kind of "bus" is always completely full? A single-seater golf cart.
- queenkjuul 1y agoThe answer is just more frequent buses.
- __alexs 1y agoEven a half empty bus is considerably more efficient than most forms of personal transportation.
- triceratops 1y agoIs a half-empty bus more efficient than a 4-seater sedan carrying 3 people? Or an electric scooter? An electric trike? A golf cart?
- fwip 1y agoYes, probably but I haven't done the math, yes, and yes.
- rsynnott 1y ago_In principle_, the electric scooter is probably more efficient per unit volume, but only if arranged in a biker gang style convoy.
- mattdeboard 1y agoYes
- rsynnott 1y agoThe buses used here (double decker) take 80-100 people depending on model and are 12-14 meters long (about three smallish cars nose to tail. Half full they are massively more space efficient than cars. Even mostly empty, really. The story is a _bit_ worse for single decker buses, but honestly not much.
- __alexs 1y agoThe problem with double decker busses is you lose a lot of the capacity benefit by increasing the loading/unloading times. If you eliminated the whole ticketing process and optimised the loading times they would probably be a LOT better.
- Grimblewald 1y agoThe problem here, the great limiting factor, is volume. We have finite volume to occupy things with and these carts would be way less efficient than a bus. Bus drivers may be "expensive" but are entierly affordable in a public transport system. Hard to profit from though so america is fucked on that front. You're unlikely to see it without cultural revolution. Doesnt make proposed solution any less bad, or prone to simply perpetuating the ecact same issue plaguing the system now. as for fsd busses, much more feasible with public infrastructure as you can give the bus eyes via cameras mounted at any difficult points in the city, things hard to make privately accessible due to abuse but fairly reasonable for a well made and maintained publically managed privacy focused system.
- general1726 1y agoWell then you will find out that these vehicles needs their own infrastructure, because they don't exist in a vacuum, but in a city where lot of other elements are using the roads, like people crossing streets on lights. And when you will get your own infrastructure, well you are converging back to a subway or overhead light railway.
- triceratops 1y ago> you will find out that these vehicles needs their own infrastructure, because... people [cross] streets on lights. Isn't handling that part of the definition of "self-driving"?
- general1726 1y agoPeople repeatedly crossing lights will create traffic in the city, self driving or not. Using your own infrastructure negates what self driving tech bros are trying to achieve - pods on existing roads.
- triceratops 1y agoYour vision for public transportation sounds like "trains, walk, bike, or gtfo". There's 0 room for buses. If someone lives 2 miles from a train station and can't bike, too bad. Maybe you don't mean that, but it sounds like that to me. Please explain how last-mile connectivity works in your world.
- simgt 1y agoThis edge case always comes up as counter argument to better public transports and cycling infrastructure. The few who can't combine walking or a bike with some form of public transport will simply rely on less efficient modes of transport on the now much less busy roads... be it a (small) car, a shuttle, a taxi, or whatever makes sense. It'd be silly to suggest we don't need escalators because the elderly only use the elevator anyway.
- tossandthrow 1y agoRegardless, you'd need to get Americans out of their huge SUVs. Whether it is into golf carts or trains, I bet you there will be resistence.
- appreciatorBus 1y agoMost of the land consumed by vehicle operation is not consumed by the vehicle itself, but by the headway in front of the vehicle that’s necessary for safe operation at a given velocity. For instance, at 0 mph, car might be 20 feet long and occupy a 10 foot wide lane, for a total land consumption of 200 ft². However, at 60 mph using the two second rule for safe following distance it needs an extra 240 feet of distance for a total land consumption of 2600 ft.². By limiting your one seat golf carts to 30 mph, you’ll certainly need less headway then something people expect to operate at 60 or 70 mph, but it will still be much larger footprint than simply the vehicle itself. Of course, this is true of other vehicles, including buses and trains, but they get to divide that land consumption by the number of people inside, making the comparison much more favourable. IMO Better than arguing about what type of vehicles people should and shouldn’t use, we should simply stop giving away public land for vehicles as if it’s free. Require the public, as owners of the land, be reimbursed for land consumed by private vehicles, including headway. If you’re Elon Musk and you’re terrified of strangers on transit, that’s fine. You just have to reimburse the public for the extra land required to travel alone in your robot car.
- triceratops 1y agoI'm not opposed to congestion pricing. I think it is inevitable as self-driving technology becomes widespread. Robodrivers remove the pain of being stuck in traffic. So you need something else to prevent forever traffic jams. > buses and trains, but they get to divide that land consumption by the number of people inside, making the comparison much more favourable Buses and trains rarely run completely full. A one-seater golf cart is a "bus" that runs at 100% occupancy.
- appreciatorBus 1y agoA 60' bus going 60mph might need 5400 sqft of land vs the 2600 sqft of the car. It would only need 2 passengers to beat it. re: "completely full" - the vehicle is irrelevant. Neither the full one seater golf cart, or the full 50 passenger bus make the road way completely full, but they have very different land costs per person and as owners of the land, we should be asking why we've set the price for using 2600 sqft of land the same as the price for using 26 sqft of land - $0.
- beeflet 1y agoI like this "city golf cart" idea. Just take a golf cart type of vehicle, give it a better battery. 30mph is all you need in a city. In fact, you could even take the self-driving element out.