Driverless cars
May 9th, 2010 at 9:44:18 AM
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Randal O'Toole was making a recent presentation in Vegas regarding driverless cars and the persistent traffic problem in getting to the city.
WSJ article
LVRJ article
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Taking the Driver Out of the Car
by Randal O'Toole
Randal O'Toole is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and author of
Gridlock: Why We're Stuck in Traffic and What to Do About It.
Why robocars, and not high-speed rail, could revolutionize transportation in the next decade
"Your grandchildren will snap across the entire continent in 24 hours on a new kind of highway and in a new kind of driverless car that is controlled by the push of a button," futurist Norman Bel Geddes promised in 1940. Mr. Bel Geddes designed Futurama, the most popular exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair, which in many ways inspired the construction of the Interstate Highway System.
Driverless cars have so far remained the stuff of science fiction. Seventy years after Mr. Bel Geddes's promise, they are finally close to reality.
Consumers today can buy cars that steer themselves; accelerate and brake to maintain a safe driving distance from cars ahead; and detect and avoid collisions with other cars on all sides. Making them completely driverless will involve little more than a software upgrade.
Driverless cars have so far remained the stuff of science fiction.
Yet the potential for advanced personal mobility is being ignored in debates over surface transportation. These debates come to a head every six years, when Congress hashes out how to spend federal gas tax revenues. Congress has increasingly diverted the funds — $40 billion a year by last count — from highways to transit.
WSJ article
LVRJ article
====================
Taking the Driver Out of the Car
by Randal O'Toole
Randal O'Toole is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and author of
Gridlock: Why We're Stuck in Traffic and What to Do About It.
Why robocars, and not high-speed rail, could revolutionize transportation in the next decade
"Your grandchildren will snap across the entire continent in 24 hours on a new kind of highway and in a new kind of driverless car that is controlled by the push of a button," futurist Norman Bel Geddes promised in 1940. Mr. Bel Geddes designed Futurama, the most popular exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair, which in many ways inspired the construction of the Interstate Highway System.
Driverless cars have so far remained the stuff of science fiction. Seventy years after Mr. Bel Geddes's promise, they are finally close to reality.
Consumers today can buy cars that steer themselves; accelerate and brake to maintain a safe driving distance from cars ahead; and detect and avoid collisions with other cars on all sides. Making them completely driverless will involve little more than a software upgrade.
Driverless cars have so far remained the stuff of science fiction.
Yet the potential for advanced personal mobility is being ignored in debates over surface transportation. These debates come to a head every six years, when Congress hashes out how to spend federal gas tax revenues. Congress has increasingly diverted the funds — $40 billion a year by last count — from highways to transit.
May 9th, 2010 at 10:12:18 AM
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I used to watch a program on the science network, I think, where some young engineering teams had to try to write a computer program that could drive a car safely from one place to another with some unexpected variables of normal driving, such as people slowing down or turning without signal, etc. For most of the programs, the difficult, unforseen situations usually completely screwed them up and resulted in a mistake, and in a few instances, caused the poor car to lose its mind and just lightly bump a railing until the operators terminated it and took a loss.
If you're talking about these highways being ONLY special cars, I guess that makes a huge difference, because they could all be programmed to know each other's locations and actions. I'm not sure what to think about such a large infrastructure venture such as creating a "new" set of highways- on the plus side, infrastructure almost always creates jobs and provides some temporary work. On the negative, lots of money and, more importantly, our old roads may go the way of the railroad by getting pretty much ignored from then on and just falling apart. I also have this fear that accidents would be limited, but extremely fatal and damaging when they did occur.
If you're talking about these highways being ONLY special cars, I guess that makes a huge difference, because they could all be programmed to know each other's locations and actions. I'm not sure what to think about such a large infrastructure venture such as creating a "new" set of highways- on the plus side, infrastructure almost always creates jobs and provides some temporary work. On the negative, lots of money and, more importantly, our old roads may go the way of the railroad by getting pretty much ignored from then on and just falling apart. I also have this fear that accidents would be limited, but extremely fatal and damaging when they did occur.
May 9th, 2010 at 11:04:33 AM
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I have to admit that the idea of dedicated lanes where people can drive at 120 mph and be within the speed limit seem practical. It is well within the parameters of present day technology. I am not thinking of driverless, but of augmented driving where braking is automatic and steering is easily controlled by IR built into the highway.
Technology that recognizes eye movement is not that expensive. You would have to assure that the driver is not asleep, climbed into the backseat, or drinking. Even at 120 mph, you would want him to be able to take over control within a reasonable amount of time, if a serious problem develops.
You would have a transmitter in your car, much like the technology when you prepay tolls for highways. They would certify that your car has the necessary technology and has been periodically examined.
These cars might be available for rent. Even if they cost $150 per day in present money, it would still be worth it for 4 people who might otherwise be paying $150 apiece to get to Las Vegas on the DesertXpress (including taxi charges). They would have a car to sightsee around Las Vegas. If the car does 120 mph on the highway, it would still save a lot of time over parking your regular car, waiting for a train, then boarding the train which would travel at 150 mph, getting off the train and taking a taxi or public transportation to your hotel.
But the idea of individually maintained cars going at 180-200 mph seems far fetched and ultimately hazardous.
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Vegas's innovation in bus rapid transit(BRT) hit a huge snag within 2 days of being implemented on the strip. The BRT has only 4 stops on the strip instead of 12 (like the Deuce bus system which has been running since 2005). So many people complained that they decided to run both systems to Fremont street. Only the ACE (BRT) runs south to car rental, Town Center mall, and the offprice outlet mall.
Limited stops and the requirement to purchase tickets from a machine rather than the bus driver was an important part of making the bus more rapid. But it turns out that walking up to 1000 yards was much more difficult than walking 150-250 yards for a bus.
Technology that recognizes eye movement is not that expensive. You would have to assure that the driver is not asleep, climbed into the backseat, or drinking. Even at 120 mph, you would want him to be able to take over control within a reasonable amount of time, if a serious problem develops.
You would have a transmitter in your car, much like the technology when you prepay tolls for highways. They would certify that your car has the necessary technology and has been periodically examined.
These cars might be available for rent. Even if they cost $150 per day in present money, it would still be worth it for 4 people who might otherwise be paying $150 apiece to get to Las Vegas on the DesertXpress (including taxi charges). They would have a car to sightsee around Las Vegas. If the car does 120 mph on the highway, it would still save a lot of time over parking your regular car, waiting for a train, then boarding the train which would travel at 150 mph, getting off the train and taking a taxi or public transportation to your hotel.
But the idea of individually maintained cars going at 180-200 mph seems far fetched and ultimately hazardous.
============
Vegas's innovation in bus rapid transit(BRT) hit a huge snag within 2 days of being implemented on the strip. The BRT has only 4 stops on the strip instead of 12 (like the Deuce bus system which has been running since 2005). So many people complained that they decided to run both systems to Fremont street. Only the ACE (BRT) runs south to car rental, Town Center mall, and the offprice outlet mall.
Limited stops and the requirement to purchase tickets from a machine rather than the bus driver was an important part of making the bus more rapid. But it turns out that walking up to 1000 yards was much more difficult than walking 150-250 yards for a bus.
