Self driving buses, trains, trucks etc

magicbastarder wrote: »

anyone else reckon that this convoy idea is solving a problem with computers that was solved centuries ago with rail?

The issue with rail is the high capital cost of building it and the fact that it doesn't go everywhere.

The advantage of driverless truck convoys is that they can cheaply use the infrastructure that is already in place for cars.

I think rail freight will still make sense across long distances (like across the US), but driver less trucks and convoys will definitely be a thing everywhere else.

end of the road wrote: »

the timetables are not set up for the staff first. the wage savings would only pay for a few busses i reccan, busses don't come cheap.

Wages make up 60% of Dublin Buses income.

New buses (100 per year) cost just about 14% of Dublin Buses income (though note they currently cost DB zero as the NTA pays for them).

At the very least self driving vehicles, especially if using cheap electricity, would pretty much guarantee we would have 24/7 bus services and probably more frequent services on Sundays. If wages are no longer an issue, then no reason to leave the buses sitting in the depot when they can be out earning revenue.

Though I do wonder if buses will survive the upcoming self driving revolution at all!

On demand, uber style self driving pod car type services could end up completely bypassing buses completely.

I've read reports that modelled the cost of such services. They found it to be about 50c per mile. To put that in context I travel about 2 miles on DB and it costs me €2.05. With this type of service, the same trip would cost about €1. Half the price, door to door and the pod car to myself!

I think some bus services will still survive, heading into the core city center with heavy congestion is present. However they will likely need to be self driving to bring the cost of services and tickets down to be more competitive with on demand car rental services.

magicbastarder wrote: »

in the short term anyway, i can see these road convoys being limited to motorways and the like - in an irish context, places that generally are already served by rail.

Sure, I agree on the first point, but on the later point, nothing stopping freight companies from using rail today, yet rail freight continues to be less then 1% of all freight carried in Ireland today.

The reality is even having a driver in the cab today is quiet a good bit cheaper then rail freight in Ireland for a variety of reasons.

Road freight companies would be looking to reduce this cost even further from their already lower cost base.

Another strong possibility is remotely operated trucks. A "driver" sitting in an office somewhere, remotely controls the truck when it is in the docks, remotely drives it out through the city onto the motorway and then leaves it go into self driving mode until it hits the next city where he takes over control again. Obviously the one remote driver would be switching between multiple trucks.

magicbastarder wrote: »

this is one claim i keep seeing that i've yet to understand fully/be convinced on; i might need to do more reading on it. i'm not sure whether it's because we're expecting a higher rate of car ownership with self driving cars; or whether people will be more inclined to carpool?

Yup, I'm not sure my self. I do think it will kill local bus services in the suburbs and orbital services. Since it would simply be cheaper and faster to get around by one of these self driving on demand cars.

However in going into the city center you run into the problem of congestion and their simply not being enough road space to fit all those self driving vehicles.

However worth pointing out that I'd expect these self driving cars to be small, single seat pod cars, taking up probably 1/4 of the space of a car we have today and for eventually all these pod cars to be communicating with one another and thus optimising the road space, so I'd expect that the road capacity to increase around at least 5 fold. But that still probably isn't good enough for the core city center.

However another danger for buses, even on core routes going into the city center, is people opting to take their pod car to their nearest DART/Metro/Luas station and taking those forms of transport instead of a bus.

plodder wrote: »

I'm sceptical about that aspect too. We've had car pooling schemes already. I don't really see how self-driving is linked to car pooling specifically.

Do you mean car pooling as in 3 or 4 people sitting in one car or 3 or 4 people sharing a car at different time throughout the day. Because they are two different things.

magicbastarder wrote: »

i guess one possibility would be that there would be an app where i could input 'i want to go from A to B at approx. 7 this evening' and a people carrier would swing by and pick me up along with other people nearby it has matched to me with similar transport requirements; but this should be possible (albeit more expensive) with a human driver. would be curious if it's ever been tried.

Already exist, it is called Uber Pool and it is SUPER popular in Manhattan and other big cities. I've used it in Manhattan a few times and super fun, easy to use and much cheaper then a taxi. Basically everyone uses in Manhattan when going out at night.

Obviously removing the driver would make this service even cheaper.

But again, this is car pooling. There will also be self driving car sharing services.

We have GoCar today, but the issue is that you have to drop it back to where you picked it up which limits it's utility greatly.

How self driving car sharing will work:
- Pull your phone out of your pocket and order a self driving car from a to b [1]
- A self driving single seat pod car is dispatched from a parking lot [2] and pulls up in front of your home
- You jump in and it drives you to your destination
- The pod car then either goes to pick up the next person in the local area or goes off to one of the companies garages to recharge and wait for the next order.

[1] This can be highly automated to tie into your calendar so the car arrives at your front door every morning at the right time (taking into account traffic conditions and weather conditions) to get to your destination.
[2] Realistically the rental car will have hundreds if not thousands of these cars circling the city, using algorithms to place them close to where people are likely to order them from.