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Some ideas around transportation: - smart pothole patches. Currently patches barely make the road any more driveable and uneven road surfaces result in billion

Some ideas around transportation: - smart pothole patches. Currently patches barely make the road any more driveable and uneven road surfaces result in billions in economic loss due to accidents, repairs, and traffic. - drone machine equipment. Employ operators in the midwest in trailers while they control equipment all over the world. You'll get few accidents and utilize resources more efficiently. Put the operators in geographically advantageous locations and you can run the equipment 24/7. - Volunteer traffic shaping network. I figure all you need is 15-20 volunteer drivers to effectively eliminate rush hour stop and go traffic on one side of a highway by throttling throughput. Create an app to help coordinate and reward them.

johngalt 13y ago
re: potholes You already have millions of internet connected (gps localized) accelerometers on the roads daily. If you could convince enough drivers to record/report that information you'd have a decent map of any rough spots.
- svenkatesh 13y ago
  >If you could convince enough drivers Good luck with that. If you even tried to convince drivers to do that, they'd scream about a conspiracy to track everyone's movement (beyond the tracking that already exists).
- djb_hackernews 13y ago
  That exists, it seems to be a popular civic hack-a-thon project[1]. I'm not too worried about identifying pot holes, I'm more interested in road construction that avoids them completely or makes them easier to fix in a better way, [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=pot+hole+detection+app https://www.google.com/search?q=pot+hole+detection+app
buckbova 13y ago
On potholes, there is more recent technology called "infrared repair" that heats up existing asphalt instead of a cut and replace method. You have to get the government to adopt it. https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=infrared%20repair%20pothole#hl=en&q=infrared+pothole+repair&tbm=nws https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=infrared%20repai...
- djb_hackernews 13y ago
  I have seen that, which is what made me more convinced we need better pot hole repair and road construction. Those systems are expensive and complicated. What I envision is something even easier and fool proof than a large piece of equipment you need extensive training on. It should be dumber than cutting the pavement and filling it with new asphalt. I'm imagining essentially a self leveling cement that untrained people can use that has the same lasting properties of the infrared repair solutions.

johngalt 13y ago

re: potholes You already have millions of internet connected (gps localized) accelerometers on the roads daily. If you could convince enough drivers to record/report that information you'd have a decent map of any rough spots.

svenkatesh 13y ago
>If you could convince enough drivers Good luck with that. If you even tried to convince drivers to do that, they'd scream about a conspiracy to track everyone's movement (beyond the tracking that already exists).
djb_hackernews 13y ago
That exists, it seems to be a popular civic hack-a-thon project[1]. I'm not too worried about identifying pot holes, I'm more interested in road construction that avoids them completely or makes them easier to fix in a better way, [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=pot+hole+detection+app https://www.google.com/search?q=pot+hole+detection+app

buckbova 13y ago

On potholes, there is more recent technology called "infrared repair" that heats up existing asphalt instead of a cut and replace method. You have to get the government to adopt it. https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=infrared%20repair%20pothole#hl=en&q=infrared+pothole+repair&tbm=nws https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=infrared%20repai...

djb_hackernews 13y ago
I have seen that, which is what made me more convinced we need better pot hole repair and road construction. Those systems are expensive and complicated. What I envision is something even easier and fool proof than a large piece of equipment you need extensive training on. It should be dumber than cutting the pavement and filling it with new asphalt. I'm imagining essentially a self leveling cement that untrained people can use that has the same lasting properties of the infrared repair solutions.