Vocal Voices

Tesla has released beta code of its full self driving package. Queue dozens of video's of people with their Tesla's driving on their own in normal day to day situation.

Now you might think, "so what it's just a toy". On the surface it might just seem like that. Until you realise the goal is not just to be a better cruise control. The goal is that the vehicle is certified to drive without anyone in it.

OK so you might not want to punt your £40,000 Tesla out as a robotaxi. But that is not the only option. Want to go to town and do some shopping but can't find a parking space or don't want to pay some rip off council for it? Send the car home. When you are ready to go home, pull out your phone and the car comes to you. Right to you, to your feet.

Spend all week driving to the train station, paying a fortune for parking to take the train to work whilst you car simply sits there all day? Get it to drop you off and send it home. As the train is approaching the station, tell it to come pick you up.

Had a heavy night at the pub? Get in the back of the car and go home. No taxi needed. Even take some friends, the wife/husband etc.

The world is changing and it is changing faster than most predict. At least it is not something which is a downer.

Suff wrote:

OK so you might not want to punt your £40,000 Tesla out as a robotaxi. But that is not the only option. Want to go to town and do some shopping but can't find a parking space or don't want to pay some rip off council for it? Send the car home. When you are ready to go home, pull out your phone and the car comes to you. Right to you, to your feet.

Spend all week driving to the train station, paying a fortune for parking to take the train to work whilst you car simply sits there all day? Get it to drop you off and send it home. As the train is approaching the station, tell it to come pick you up.

Had a heavy night at the pub? Get in the back of the car and go home. No taxi needed. Even take some friends, the wife/husband etc.

The world is changing and it is changing faster than most predict. At least it is not something which is a downer.

That's brilliant. I'd be far more likely to go to the pub under those circumstances.

Talk about solving first world problems!

People already moan about metal boxes capable of carrying four or five people driving round with only one person in them, and now we are about to have bigger boxes driving round with nobody in them!

And why go shopping? Just click your fingers and tell Alexa or Siri to get the shopping ordered, then point the remote at the TV lie back and watch Netflix. Johnny 5 will bring your coffee in once the coffee making machine has done its work. And that man Wallace has a machine to help you get dressed, trousers a speciality, should you feel the need to get out of bed.

Welcome to Wall-E world.

Ah, yes, but that is only the first stage. The second stage is the number of people who will not want a metal box when they can whip their phone out and call one up, sans chatty driver, for less than £1 per mile.

Solving one hell of a lot more problems than just first world.

This leads into platooning electric trucks with, potentially, one driver and far more flexible busses which can divert to pick you up and can drop you off closer to home.

It also means busses can serve demand and not drive around empty half the time.

It all requires first world money and adoption for the development to happen and then the benefits flow downhill like a river.

But, of course, If you insist we fix Africa's problems first it is never going to happen and neither is the smart transport grid or the reductions in vehicles on our roads. So they won't get it either because nobody is going to spend $30bn building this technology to put it in busses for fares at twopence and a freshly killed chicken!

We already have Access buses for those who qualify and are registered to use them. You phone up and it picks you up on its journey and drops you off near to your point of choice. They are low floor 24 seaters able to get into and out of estates. The reason the main operators, Arriva and First Bus, do not operate them is that they are about as inefficient as you could get with all the different A to B journeys on one vehicle - driver or no driver. Good for the elderly and infirm, no so fabulous for your average passenger wanting to get to work.

Some countries also have road trains. Fine if the pick up and drop off points are next to a motorway and to cover long distances. Not so useful in UK cities and towns or on many of our A roads, whether diesel or electric.

And we already have these things called "taxis" that you can phone up for a ride. Many of us would prefer one with a driver who at least tries to keep it clean between fares. You only need to travel on a few late night buses to understand what I am getting at.

All this "Tomorrow's World" stuff is brilliant.... until you question it.

Suff wrote:But, of course, If you insist we fix Africa's problems first it is never going to happen

True. One of my son's friends did some degree in managing disasters, or some such. When he came back from Africa he was basically in what can you do? mode.
He said the distances are so vast and the infrastructure so weak that atm trying to allieviate disasters is extremely difficult.

WM, the phone in and I'll send you a bus is never going to work.

A fully electric bus sitting without a driver waiting for a call is an entirely different proposition. Driven by a neural network which works out most likely parking places, plans and shifts routes which best meet the needs of the customers.

The opportunities are endless, but if we scope it in terms of today with drivers in the busses, burning fuel, huge maintenance costs (EV maintenance is very low, some Nissan Leaf's have done 100,000 miles with only one repair), then you are going to get an answer which doesn't add up.

What is becoming available is going to make traditional mid density public transport totally obsolete. Only high volume stuff is going to remain.

Suff wrote:A fully electric bus sitting without a driver waiting for a call is an entirely different proposition.

No its not, Access buses are already working to your model except that the neural network is in the driver's head, and it matters not what the method of propulsion is or whether it has a driver. If it is waiting for a call or calls it has potentially 24 different routes, or routlettes, to follow as each caller might want to go from a separate A to a different B. A neural network might be of some minimal help but it will not change the fact that journeys that could take tens of minutes would take an age. An absolute waste of time for a normal commute in the rush hour.

We also already have all electric buses, in use today, from the small Access bus up to 99 passenger (80 seat) double-deckers and with a range upwards of 160 mile.

Nobody has yet solved the problem of off-peak v rush hour use of public transport, ask the bright boys and girls at Transport 2000, they tried and failed.

We shall watch as it changes.

One thing is absolutely certain, the status quo it toast.

Suff, what you are talking about already exists in more than an embryonic form; it is very niche, and it is no solution to a mass transit problem. As was the case with T2000's 'solution'.

I attended two T2000 consultations in Leeds where they wanted to get rid of about 240,000 inbound and outbound car journeys during the rush hours of 07:00 - 10:00 and 16:00 to 19:00 hrs. They were going to use buses - lots of them.

Then came the questions about where all the buses and drivers would come from, and what would happen to them all during the off-peak periods, and where would they be parked and serviced and by whom, and how much would it all cost.

Unsurprisingly the idea never saw the light of day If we are going to change the status quo we have a lot more workable thinking to do to get there.