On an entirely different topic

[victor]

There is not a hope in hell of this EVER working in a Rural area but then it's only about the cities isn't it

[Suff]

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.

You are thinking traditional busses, drivers, rest breaks, toilet breaks, sitting at bus parks etc.

The concept here is, yes, embryonic. But the end result is totally different. No driver sitting, busses sized and held for the job in hand, right down to 7 seaters. A bus, sitting in a bus bay on the side of the road, without a driver, costs no more than a bus sitting in the garage. But it is Far, FAR, more useful than the kind of solution designed for T2000.

Yes there are up front costs, but way less than needing a flexible pool of, say, 300 drivers who would be on a Zero hour contract (which, apparently, is bad). So we get rid of the driver totally.

Over and above this, the model which allows people to put their vehicle up for robotaxi means that these private transport vehicles are available everywhere and the cost to use is close to public transport costs.

It is worth looking towards them because this is the future. People who request their bus trip the day before, the neural network allocates the vehicles and routes, passengers allowed to change busses as the route changes. Flexibility in a mass transport system, revolutionary and it simply can't happen with a vehicle and a driver and a telephone call.

People said the internet was a toy. FB was a toy, twitter was a toy, all social media were toys, the internet would never take over bricks and mortar because people would not buy without touching first.

All of these things ignored a simple fact. Young people accept the future as normal. It is just us old fogies who can't change.