Driverless cars ! Is it all Bah Humbug?

[APOLLO]

According to the tech-savvy Yanks, back in 1957 we were all supposed to have flying cars by 1967 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Where are they ?

 

Brit15

[Reorte]

Can't say I'm very keen on the idea of driverless cars, and mostly view them as solutions looking for a problem. Despite some fools on the road they really aren't dangerous enough for it to be a valid concern, and I find this idea of trying to take away as much responsibility from people as possible and let machines do everything rather unpleasant. The practical "advantages" of them I find equally unappealing.

 

If they work properly they'll have some very good uses, mostly for people who can't travel easily at the moment, but I don't want a world where it's the norm for everyone.

 

No doubt I'll completely change my mind if it can drive me home from a pub.

[Ozexpatriate]

Firstly , all these cars have to be garaged when not in use ,( ie quiet periods ) where will that be. ? , to provide reasonable response , you will need massively more vehicles at peak times , then at other times , resulting in inefficiencies. Peak time congestion will remain, resulting in both travel and summoning delays , both of which are unacceptable to the commuter ( you can see this today with taxis )

I agree with the sentiment regarding unexpected/unintended consequences. Autonomy doesn't eliminate congestion, but it does reduce it with optimized vehicle-to-vehicle distances and automated lane changing arbitration.

 

There is an alternative model where instead of ownership by massive rental car providers like Hertz and likely Uber, we see the sharing economy version where individuals with a regular job own a car but make it available for sharing during the day or late at night. This might seem like anathema to people with a lifetime of owning a personal car but predicting that things will stay the same as they always have is at least as equally wrong as 'future gazing'.

 

As for suburban or semi rural , the model doesn't work at all

It will work perfectly well in suburban areas, but not at all in rural areas as you point out. Almost by definition, this is a small fraction of the total population.

 

Bear in mind my perspective is the US where geography and demographics are slightly different and useful public transit is often non-existent.

 

No one ever predicted thirty years ago that we would have the equivalent of supercomputers in our pockets that people would mostly use to take pictures of themselves, vote for performers on televised talent shows and look at videos of cats.

[Rivercider]

All of those are pretty minor challenges though. The lorry can be programmed to arrive at a holding area at the factory site, and then manually driven to the loading bay. If necessary you rearrange your site to handle the autonomous lorries. 

But at many locations there will not be a driver to drive into the loading bay, and then help unload the lorry, and get someone to sign for the contents.

 

It would help though if the driver was 'signed out'  on his tacho for the trunk part of the route, then he would not need a break on arrival at destination,

 

cheers

[pete_mcfarlane]

According to the tech-savvy Yanks, back in 1957 we were all supposed to have flying cars by 1967 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Where are they ?

 

Brit15

 

Here you go: http://www.ehang.com/ehang184

 

Not quite a flying car, but a prototype of a passenger carrying drone. Since it flies itself, it tackles the main problem with flying cars - namely that you don't want any old member of the public to fly an aircraft.

[Glorious NSE]

Predictions of some form of shared automated taxi style paradigm, miss the point that cars are as much lifestyle purchases , they are objects of desire as much as functional transport mechanisms. There is no evidence this is changing. Postulating an urban environment filled wth driverless Uber cars still results in massive congestion and many cities are today are moving away from car centric transport thinking , driver less or not.

I think that probably depends a lot on the city you are talking about. Some cities are currently very car-centric, and it will be very difficult to rewrite that - whereas some have good enough public transport that a sizeable chunk of population effectively lives car free already and don't feel like second class citizens in any way.

 

In the former, I could see automation on that kind of (robot taxi) basis actually reducing the use of an already struggling public transport offering (particularly buses) as it would allow most of the features without most of the drawbacks.

 

In the latter, I could see the public transport offering becoming automated, as the public is already conditioned to use it and uses it in numbers that make it the most cost effective transport solution for most journeys.

 

 

 

[Glorious NSE]

According to the tech-savvy Yanks, back in 1957 we were all supposed to have flying cars by 1967 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Where are they ?

 

Brit15

Quite impressed that it's fitted with a barbeque grille on each corner. All mod cons...

[mcowgill]

So will the driverless car interact with pedestrians, cyclists, horses?  

 

How long before pedestrians realise that they can jump off the kerb anywhere and all the cars will brake to avoid them.  How does the car determine the likelihood of a pedestrian wanting to cross the road?   In places where jaywalking is a crime it might be easier to handle this as you are only expecting it to happen at designated crossings but not here in the UK.    

 

I regularly commute by cycle, what space is the vehicle going to leave me when it overtakes, how does it asses the risk?  Some of that we intuitively do while driving by looking at the rider, bike and clothing to come to some (possibly flawed) view on the experience and ability of the rider.  Haw far do I have to ride from the kerb to bring the whole street to a crawl when the automated car at the front decides it can't pass me?

 

Horses are a far worse situation, I can see these being an almost insurmountable problem on rural roads with mush higher levels of uncertainty.

 

I really can't see our roads being filled with much more than cars with expanded versions of current 'auto assist' for a very long time.

 

Martin

[pete_mcfarlane]

But at many locations there will not be a driver to drive into the loading bay, and then help unload the lorry, and get someone to sign for the contents.

I was thinking more of large distribution centres, since they'll likely to be the initial customers for these lorries. You'd just need an on-duty driver at each site, which costs a lot less than having one in each lorry. The loads will probably be palletised (there have been some tests done already in the US with using them for palletised loads of beer) which solves the unloading issues.  

 

The other thing to remember is that these lorries aren't just going to turn up unannounced at the gate. They'll be in two-way communication with the destination site or a central control centre, so it should be easy enough for a large organisation to manage all of the issues with arrival times and loading bay availability. 

[Horsetan]

......Horses are a far worse situation, I can see these being an almost insurmountable problem on rural roads with mush higher levels of uncertainty.

 

Bill and I look forward to filling in an insurance claim form, assuming of course the autonomous vehicle doesn't kill us first.

[IWCR]

Yes  they  will  come.

As  stated earlier  Motorways  are  the  easiest  for automation  to  cope  with,  all  traffic  flow  one  direction  (each  side), easy  junctions  and  the  absence  of  other  traffic  eg:  horse  &  cart,  bicycles,  pedestrians  etc.

I  would  expect  that  this  is  will  automation  will  start  and  perhaps  end,  it  may  be  the  case  that  it  is  not  realistic  for  a  driverless  vehicle  to  handle  general  roads and  their  many  permutations  and  users.

Possibly  it  will  be  a  case  of  driving  onto  the  motorway  then  switching  to  automatic.  Take  back  control  when  your  leaving  junction  arrives.  Lorries  could  be  totally  driverless  operating  from  a  start  parking area  to  a  finish  parking  site  where  human  drivers  take  over.

 

Pete 

[Ozexpatriate]

So will the driverless car interact with pedestrians, cyclists, horses?  

Pedestrians and cyclist safety is already a massive problem here in Portland with human drivers and (while I don't have a nice presentation of the data) it feels like it is getting worse.

 

Equipped with forward-looking infrared sensors, autonomous vehicles will do much better than humans at identifying pedestrians and cyclists, particularly during wet, dark, rainy nights like we are experiencing this week.

 

One of the areas where the Google autonomous vehicle software failed recently was in interacting with a cyclist who was neither moving forward nor stationary - he was balancing at a stop. The car couldn't figure out what to do and stopped - a safer reaction than with many human drivers.

 

As to horses, the last time I saw a horse on a public road was in Lancaster County, PA. It was pulling an Amish buggy.

[APOLLO]

So will the driverless car interact with pedestrians, cyclists, horses?  

 

I regularly commute by cycle, what space is the vehicle going to leave me when it overtakes, how does it asses the risk?  Some of that we intuitively do while driving by looking at the rider, bike and clothing to come to some (possibly flawed) view on the experience and ability of the rider.  Haw far do I have to ride from the kerb to bring the whole street to a crawl when the automated car at the front decides it can't pass me?

 

Martin

 

High power Lasers will be fitted (optional extra ) !!!

 

Brit15

[Andrew F]

To zap cyclists and horse riders?

[30801]

As to horses, the last time I saw a horse on a public road was in Lancaster County, PA. It was pulling an Amish buggy.

 

Last time I saw a horse on the road was Sunday.

Basically every weekend in fact.

 

Now what will the driver-less car made of horse jobbies n the road?

Will it emergency stop for one? or run it over?

Will it realise that in winter running over a frozen-solid horse jobbie is a Bad Thing?

[Horsetan]

....a frozen-solid horse jobbie is ....

 

...a potential offensive weapon. I once flung one at a window and cracked the glass.......

[APOLLO]

Come to think about it what will a driverless car do in very heavy falling snow - do a British rail & stop all services !!!.

 

Can't wait to see the things tootling round Wigan, and the stick they will receive from the local riff-raff !!!!!!!!

 

Brit15

[Ozexpatriate]

Come to think about it what will a driverless car do in very heavy falling snow

It's a big problem for them - not so much the falling snow, but when the roadway and surroundings are completely snow covered. The car can't identify the edges or the middle of the road. It's a problem for humans too of course.

 

I mentioned earlier that Volvo are testing their autonomous vehicles in Gothenburg to mitigate this problem. Further north there is too much snow for them to manage right now.

[melmerby]

 

As to horses, the last time I saw a horse on a public road was in Lancaster County, PA. It was pulling an Amish buggy.

Several leisure stables within spitting (disgusting habit!) walking distance so a horse passing my house is not unusual (with a rider of course!)

 

Keith

[duncan]

the idea of self driving vehicles opens up the problem of using a phone whilst driving, drink driving, driving without due care. You will still need someone to be in control of the vehicle.

 

If a self driving vehicle hit a pedestrian you could not put the vehicle in court for an inquest or to answer charges.

 

The idea of driverless buses would cause major problems with the drivers unions as it would lead to job losses.

 

On a plus side you could have a car that knows if it is being stolen, so then locks doors and drives to nearest police station whilst also reporting itself stolen.

 

unless it is hacked & directed elsewhere 

[F-UnitMad]

I was thinking more of large distribution centres, since they'll likely to be the initial customers for these lorries. You'd just need an on-duty driver at each site, which costs a lot less than having one in each lorry. The loads will probably be palletised (there have been some tests done already in the US with using them for palletised loads of beer) which solves the unloading issues.  

 

The other thing to remember is that these lorries aren't just going to turn up unannounced at the gate. They'll be in two-way communication with the destination site or a central control centre, so it should be easy enough for a large organisation to manage all of the issues with arrival times and loading bay availability.

 

You're not too familiar with the way Supermarket RDCs usually run, then??

[bertiedog]

Horses? outside passing every day in the outskirts of the city of Rochester in Kent. Two went past the house on the road today, There are stables near the old Borstal Prison, and until recently a horse box was parked over the road, and in use each week for Pony Club events. so not uncommon around here.

[pete_mcfarlane]

You're not too familiar with the way Supermarket RDCs usually run, then??

Just wait until they start using autonomous forklifts to unload the driverless lorries. 

 

Another current trend is the rise of really good software for monitoring and analysis. I've seen some interesting toys for analysing things like website usage, software performance and so on which generate genuinely useful reports and dashboards for management. These give them all sorts of useful insights that they didn't have a few years back. It's not an unreasonable assumption that automated commercial vehicles will come with similar analysis tools, if only to show how wonderfully efficient they are and how you should buy more of them. 

 

So it's going to be interesting (and possibly a bit messy) once the automated lorries and forklifts start spitting out bar charts showing their bosses how they were kept waiting by the puny humans faffing around and taking loads of fag breaks. 

[Bill]

From Tesla..

 

https://vimeo.com/192179726

 

If the music is anything to go by....

[rockershovel]

Re various comments above

 

- it is already possible to use computer and GPS technology to load and offload container ships, pretty much without human intervention. Rotterdam works this way, and I don't suppose it's the only place by any means. I don't see any particular problem with developing self-driving forklifts on the same model, although it would need some redesign of workplaces to keep the remaining human elements and robot elements apart.

 

- I can't imagine Uber, or any other similar operation, holding large fleets of cars, as someone suggested. Uber is the embodiment if a certain version of the capitalist ideal; the production of a profit from thin air, pure money manipulation, without investment or risk. Of course, like most versions of the philosophers stone, or perpetual motion machine, it ACTUALLY functions by consuming other people's money - Uber is going through huge amounts of expenditure - but so it goes.

 

- I COULD envisage Uber mutating into a huge subcontracting function, by which other people's cars fitted with driverless facility at their cost, are contracted out; doubtless in conjunction with huge numbers of small investors signing up to "finance" of some sort. Changes in travel technology tend to produce bad investments. The South Sea Bubble, and various similar schemes were based ultimately upon improvements in sailing ship technology, combined with what would later be called "insider trading" and unadorned dishonesty. The over-promotion of railway shares in the 1840s, the similar "projection" of canals which preceded it; the American trans-continental railway was a notable failure within its own, internal finances (leaving the quote "a hell of a way to run a railroad" to enter the language). The Channel Tunnel was accompanied by some pretty murky dealings and promotion of shares to small investors who were cynically abandoned in due course.