The WEpod will be the first self-driving electric shuttle to run in regular traffic, and take bookings via a dedicated app.
What I like about this is the potential to overcome the nutty desire for more trains by overcoming the aversion to buses. Because these are, of course, buses. Of course... but... shhhh.
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I guess I should get a smart phone. So many apps I can't run.
Buses might be more popular if they were more comfortable (everyone gets a seat) and noticeably faster than walking (which they currently aren't because they make so many stops). If making them driverless makes them sufficiently cheap that they could be out in greater numbers while holding fewer passengers, it might be possible to coordinate them the way elevator banks are coordinated today so that they all become, in effect, express buses.
Tim Maguire,
You're on target about where the industry wants to go, but this will all be implemented in Europe, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and even many Third World countries long before they're widespread in the USA. Too many American lawyers stand to lose way too much money to allow self-driving cars on the road - they're gonna fight it with everything they have, and that includes substantial influence in the political process.
I can't wait for the day that the overwhelming majority of vehicles are fully automated. Humans are horrible drivers. Of course it will completely obliterate the logistics and transportation industry, no more human truckers, cab (or Uber) drivers, or delivery drivers.
The Netherlands are flat land crisscrossed by canals. It is sort of like the Orlando Florida area. Both are perfect for rides in a Park using as little human employees as possible.
I don't think you can really compare these to buses in that buses generally drive a dedicated, fixed route. The article indicates that these (though maybe starting out with a fixed route) will be able to adjust the itinerary and perhaps the routes as indicated by those reserving seats.
One of the issues with buses is that you want to get from point A to point B but the buses may not directly go to both places based on their designated routes so you wind up having to change buses. If these get to the point whereas you can schedule your pickup time and location and your drop-off location and the system figures out the most efficient shuttle to get you there, that would be worth having. Not quite as efficient (time/distance wise) as a taxi but not as expensive. Not as cheap as a bus but you don't have to change vehicles and you [generally would] get there faster.
Should be interesting when the power goes down. I wonder if they respond to traffic cops?
"I guess I should get a smart phone. So many apps I can't run."
I thought I was the last person on Earth without one.
I want one!
"What I like about this is the potential to overcome the nutty desire for more trains by overcoming the aversion to buses."
The nutty desire stems from a vastly greater opportunity for graft.
Achmed approves these soft targets.
I sort of like trains, but I won't take a train to NYC, for example, because it takes too darn long and a flight is 40 mins. I don't believe that they can make a train fast enough to make up that difference.
If you are providing transportation for people who otherwise can't afford it, buses are the way to go. Without doubt. I have no problem with the govt spending money on them. But you are not going to get people who can afford not to ride them to ride them.
I don't think I would want my daughter climbing aboard one of these closed boxes with a stranger a 2:00 am though.
Achmed approves these soft targets
Dutch rapists, too.
I'm concerned that a driverless shuttle might someday run over a robot pedestrian.
They are integrating these things into regular traffic. I would be curious to see how it works.
"Buses might be more popular if they were more comfortable (everyone gets a seat) and noticeably faster than walking (which they currently aren't because they make so many stops). If making them driverless makes them sufficiently cheap that they could be out in greater numbers while holding fewer passengers, it might be possible to coordinate them the way elevator banks are coordinated today so that they all become, in effect, express buses."
Driverless sounds good, but I wonder how they ensure only paying passengers get on.
The best way to improve buses is to keep them at limited, fixed routes with minimal stops (at least a mile between stops) and with dedicated lanes so they don't have to share the roads with other traffic. The stops should be equipped with smartboards indicating where the next bus is, and should provide some minimal shelter.
If you do that, it's much cheaper than putting in rail. Express buses with even fewer stops are another option, or even "deluxe" buses that are nicer and charge more, to appeal to commuters who don't want to be sitting there with the hoi polloi.
Open de deur pod bay , Hal.
A lot of it also has to do with the operation of the buses. If the drivers can swiftly and effectively deal with troublemakers (harassers, litterbugs, smokers, those who don't bathe) it could make the bus a pleasant enough experience for commuters.
AA: "What I like about this is the potential to overcome the nutty desire for more trains by overcoming the aversion to buses."
The desire for more trains where population centers are sparse is indeed nutty, but "aversion to buses"? Whence comes that?
I googled the phrase and found this Atlantic essay.
Are we talking about the smell associated with some city buses, probably caused by poor municipal cleaning? or a preference for trains on strict schedules every half hour or so to buses on slightly unpredictable schedules, with buses coming by every ten minutes or so?
No, it really is a class thing. I need a ride home, but I couldn't possibly take the bus!
Most buses would be used more if they were reliable. On weekends, the buses around me come once an hour. That's fine. Until it doesn't show up, and you now have to wait another hour.
You would have to build a lot of these to make them convenient. Likely they will be a cheaper form of taxi but not as inexpensive as taking the bus.
"I don't think you can really compare these to buses in that buses generally drive a dedicated, fixed route...."
What about school kids on field trips?
You know what's dedicated and fixed? Rails.
That's why buses are a great form of mass transportation. They can go wherever your private car would go.
The minibus (and the microbus) have a long tradition.
Remember the hippie bus!
I don't know that there's a big aversion to buses for inter-town transit in the Netherlands... especially not wee ones you self-schedule.
In big urban areas, perhaps - because of the clientele (which is why a wee bus is more appealing).
(Yeah, it's probably a class thing, as Mr. Ellison says - yet note that pretty much everyone who can afford something else avoids the bus like the plague, regardless of their social class ... at least everywhere I hear about.)
Rail is stupid for transit in a city; less so for inter-city, but still stupid unless there's a lot of traffic demand.
Wouldn't work between two little towns in the Netherlands; does work for giant commuter routes in Japan or the big EuroRail links.
Dammit , Hal ! Open de verdomde deur ! Waar ga je heen? De brug is uit! Stop! Shit ....Ik zou mijn Trek hebben gereden.
"Ann Althouse said...
You know what's dedicated and fixed? Rails."
That's why they push rail projects...because of their permanency. It's a feature, not a bug.
Milwaukee could do that stupid trolley service with busses...hell make custom busses that look like trolleys. No rearing up the roads. No relocating utility services. Save many many tens of millions of dollars. Nope.
Passenger rail generally doesn't work for many reasons. It wouldn't exist without subidies. Buses can be self-supporting, so this concept could work. When bus systems aren't self-sustaining, it's generally because politics creates a bloated system that can't be supported by fare revenue.
This will be a great experiment.
"No, it really is a class thing. I need a ride home, but I couldn't possibly take the bus!"
We just need a fancier word for "bus" or at least the upscale buses I'm thinking of.
How about "Motorizeed Livery"? "Midge, I'll be staying late but taking the motorized livery home."
Of course it's a "class thing." Trains and streetcars are cool. Buses are famously full of the poor, the unwashed, the drunk, the stoned, the rowdy, and the fare-avoiders. And, of course, those who have no alternative.
Look at San Francisco's MUNI. Or, rather, don't. MUNI actually incorporates many of Brando's points (there are shelters, there are smartboards -- not at all stops, but along major routes), but that doesn't prevent its being a grimy, uncomfortable mess. AC Transit (East Bay) is better in some ways, Golden Gate Transit (Marin, Sonoma, Contra Costa) better still, especially if you're taking one of the early-morning buses to the Financial District. But, see, that's the point: Early-morning express routes, the passengers self-select. Look at other GGT routes (especially the 30, which runs through San Rafael's "Canal District" = Hispanics, and the 10, which does the same for Marin City = Blacks), and you see different buses, and different behaviors.
Buses are easily the cheapest and fastest way to get people en masse from point A to point B within a city. It's a pity that they are smelly, unreliable, unpredictable.
Driverless buses need global controls in addition to local, autonomous control.
A basic problem in bus scheduling has always been bus bunching. Inevitably a bus gets a little behind schedule, leaving a longer-than-usual gap between it and the bus in front of it. As a result, more passengers board it (and, shortly, it needs to discharge more passengers). Which makes it even slower, until buses behind it catch up with it.
If each bus behaves autonomously, bus bunching becomes all but inevitable.
The larger problem with buses is that they rarely go from where you are to where you want to be; thus, it's often necessary to change buses once or twice on each journey, which is inconvenient and significantly increases travel times. A driverless bus can't do much to address this unless it becomes a driverless taxi (thus offering point-to-point service).
They're also not all very good at collecting fares from those who don't wish to pay, so if they're not free that might limit their use to cultures where internal and external social pressures are sufficient to get most passengers to pay.
And then there are unruly passengers, and vandals, and ...
Ann Althouse said...
"I don't think you can really compare these to buses in that buses generally drive a dedicated, fixed route...."
What about school kids on field trips?
That is not "mass transportation" as it is typically thought of and how these appear to be planned for use.
You know what's dedicated and fixed? Rails.
Try telling the bus driver you want him to go two blocks out of his normal route...
That's why buses are a great form of mass transportation. They can go wherever your private car would go.
9/21/15, 12:28 PM
They could but they don't. They have institutional flexibility but not individual flexibility. They go where the route planners tell them to go whereas by car goes where I tell it to go.
The driverless pods seem (I said seem - from the description at the link) that they could be a convenient form of a "ride share" service. If / when they get to the point whereas you indicate where you want to be picked up and when as well as where you want to be dropped off and the system can manage to fit you into their existing set of vehicles with their current travel itinerary, that would be a good thing. Especially if they could hit a price-point between taxis and buses.
Whenever I ride the bus, it seems like it's right on time if I'm a teeny bit late, and running very late if I'm a bit early.
I usually walk. (Or bike in warm weather).
"You're either on the bus or off the bus."
I suspect the limiting factor will be maintenance and cleaning. And what happens when they get a passenger who pulls out a knife and cuts up the seats just for kicks or tags the doors? The cars will end up looking like the New York subway cars of 1970.
As I understand it the Upper East Side ladies prefer the bus. They will not go underground and regard the bus as an enormous limo.
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