So did they solve the Trolley Problem?
That's always been more of a philosophical idea than a real problem. I've been driving a few decades and don't often run into Trolley situations.
Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
611–620 of 634 posts
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#612Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone said a few weeks ago that buses that run very often on the same route is just a very expensive train. I think for self driving to realy work well, we have to ban humans from driving (and perhaps make it a felony to interfere with a self driving bus the same way we cover assault on a bus driver). I thought it would be easier to implement self driving trains than to implement self driving cars. Who is working o…
Having worked with trains I'd guess that frequently running busses are actually very cheap trains. Rail infrastructure is incredibly expensive.
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Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#613Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having worked with trains I'd guess that frequently running busses are actually very cheap trains. Rail infrastructure is incredibly expensive.
> Rail infrastructure is incredibly expensive. I didn't know that but I assumed it would be cheaper than roads? I mean four tracks of trains (two local, two express) compared to four lanes of road?
Roads are dirt-cheap (pardon the pun) compared to rail: first off, a road requires an order of magnitude lower precision, can scale significantly steeper grades, and allows for curves and stopping distances that on rail would be considered insufficient. Next, operating it is a dark art in itself - scheduling, communication, safety, etc.; a highway through nowhere just needs asphalt and it just lays there, a railway needs active elements. And to top it off, there's maintenance: a 2-inch bump in a road is normal, in a railway it's a major defect. Worse, rerouting around a closed section is not a simple matter of setting up traffic cones.
All of that is expensive - like the difference between 80% and 99.9% reliability.
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#614Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that traffic will be "worse" in some sense, in that there will be more of it. But maybe not "worse" in the important sense of how annoying it is, since we won't be consciously piloting a machine through it. Instead we could be sleeping, playing video games, working on laptops, etc. I think that vehicle design will shift a lot once we start optimizing for these new use-cases, and this might make a big differen…
Agree that it's going to be harder to predict, and probably dependent on the individual. When it comes to commuting in the Pacific Northwest, for most of the year an extra half-hour of available daylight at the end (or start) of the day is the difference between getting out climbing during the work week, or not. Personally, I'd trade a comfortable commute for that extra time, no question. Of course, maybe a self-driv…
> maybe a self-driving car could allow for working during the morning commute, and getting off earlier
That's what I'm hoping for. It's already sort-of possible in the special-case of commuting on a bus like Google/Apple/etc. offer in the Bay Area.
Can we reach the point where working while in transit is as productive as being on site (face-to-face meetings notwithstanding)?
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#615Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday nights driving for 12 hours (mostly sleeping) It's really sad that the United States has let passenger rail deteriorate to the point that people are forced into this situation. Really, really poor foresight.
Passenger rail in the United States probably doesn’t have the same economics as the other places you’re thinking of. I recently drove across part of the country, and it is shocking how much space there is with absolutely nothing there. There is a 100 mile stretch of I-80 without cell service or signs of habitation. If you live in a city, it’s easy to forget that the United States is much, much, bigger than Europe or…
> Passenger rail in the United States probably doesn’t have the same economics as the other places you’re thinking of. I recently drove across part of the country, and it is shocking how much space there is with absolutely nothing there. There is a 100 mile stretch of I-80 without cell service or signs of habitation. If you live in a city, it’s easy to forget that the United States is much, much, bigger than Europe or Japan.
Visit China sometime. Lots of space, lots of high speed rail. The high speed rail is incredibly nice to use, puts airplanes to shame.
What we need is more large metro areas to take trains between. Over here on the west coast, our largest cities are not even what China would consider a tier 2 city.
(To be fair, by Chinese standards, NYC is the only reasonably sized city America has!)
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#616Earlier quoted context omitted.
Toei[0] has been experimenting with it; the Nippori-Toneri line from Nippori is a driverless monorail. The trip is fairly normal albeit jerky. Awkwardly enough, many of the stations do not have attendants either, so if you have a problem with the gate, you have to call back to Nippori and ask for help, which is a huge problem when you can't hear well enough... [0] Toei (都営) is the Tokyo Metropolitan Government-operat…
Driverless trains have been around for a while. The world's longest fully-automated driverless metro system, moving close to 500,000 people every day, exists in none other than Vancouver, Canada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_(Vancouver)
I believe Dubai will beat this soon. They're currently at #2.
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#617Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tesla's approach may really have fundamental problems, but it's impossible to compare the results from a driver assist system used by untrained consumers with an autonomous driving system that's only being used with professional safety drivers in conditions for which is expected to function properly.
It's quite possible to compare them. Google has never done anything like this.[1] This is a Tesla vehicle on "autopilot" crashing into a street sweeper without even slowing down. It's on an expressway, where Tesla's "autopilot" is supposed to work. The street sweeper is big, partly blocking the lane. The driver trusted Tesla's "autopilot" to do something reasonable. It didn't. The driver was killed. That blood is on…
The details of that video are fuzzy at best. The crash happened 8 months before it was reported in western media, before Tesla made any announcements about fully self driving systems. It's not even entirely clear Auto Pilot was involved.
Still, there have been confirmed accidents involving Auto Pilot. That's not to say it hasn't been acting as designed. It is currently a system to help drivers when they make a mistake, not a way to prevent drivers from needing to drive. They've said it will do more eventually, but that's not what they're selling.
It's entirely possible that Waymo's system is completely incapable of dealing with street sweepers stopped the middle of a passing lane of a highway. If that's the case, there's no way the professional test drivers would be taking the car into that kind of situation. The public isn't given that degree of insight into their testing methodologies. This contrasts with shipping systems, where the public is implicitly given a users (potentially mis)using the system. It also means that Tesla has orders of magnitude more distance of real-world test data than non-shipping systems.
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#618Earlier quoted context omitted.
The self-driving platform will financially nudge you in the right direction. Currently Uber charges more during rush hour. It's rather obvious that self-driving operator will implement similar price discrimination e.g. $10 if you drive alone, $5 if you share with one or more people. And the more they want you to share, the bigger the surcharge e.g. if $10 vs. $5 doesn't have desired effect then maybe $20 vs $5 will.…
Still, traffic will be worse when you compare one bus with 50 people vs. 12 self-driving cars with 4 people each. A bus is 14-15m long, whereas even a small car like the Chevy Bolt is over 4m. So parked bumper-to-bumper the cars produce >3x as much traffic, and then you add some gaps for actually driving you're up to 4x. Personally I'm very skeptical of both the claim that a) self-driving cars will see huge adoptatio…
Wouldn't the route inefficiency compensate somewhat for the rider efficiency of the bus? If you break one bus route that snakes around town hitting a dozen or more stops with 12 cars each hitting one or two close together stops and going direct to the school, you've potentially saved some driving mileage and certainly decreased the amount of time the kids are on the roads. Dependant on timing, this could be used to like traffic impact.
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#619Earlier quoted context omitted.
To detail one particular addition of traffic to the roads: students - with self-driving cars, students from K-12 may much rather want to have the independence to hop in a car rather than ride a "stinky school bus". Parents may end up loving it, especially those who already drive their kids to school. And I'm sure the school districts would love self-driving cars, because it means they can pass the travel expenses ont…
I live near an elementary school and I seldom see school buses on the road in the morning, even if I drive in front of the school. I do see fleets of SUVs. The question is, are these cars dropping off kids because the kids like it or because the parents like it? Is it because of class/status or stranger danger? If it is stranger danger, is the parent going to entrust their kids to multi-passenger Lyfts? Or even to si…
There is no shortage of Uber, at least, outside any fancy place that serves $16 cocktails at closing time. And they already have nicer cars for those who want to pay more
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#620Earlier quoted context omitted.
To detail one particular addition of traffic to the roads: students - with self-driving cars, students from K-12 may much rather want to have the independence to hop in a car rather than ride a "stinky school bus". Parents may end up loving it, especially those who already drive their kids to school. And I'm sure the school districts would love self-driving cars, because it means they can pass the travel expenses ont…
And if the cars are self-driving, the school doesn't need parking. The kids can be dropped off and the car will drive itself home. Of course that means a doubling the total number of physical trips, but that isn't the school's problem. I'm waiting for the ability to, rather than pay for parking, have my car circle the block while I eat lunch. The cost of running an electric vehicle for a few hours is far less than pa…
The "drop off lane" at my local elementary school is already a 30 minute traffic jam, and that's with parents in the cars hurrying the kids along and school staff directing traffic. You think a robot car is going to get a kid out of a seat with their backpack and lunch faster than a parent? The pick-up line is even worse, as the kids are individually dismissed after the driver has been authorized by the school staff. The current breed of self driving cars would flip out trying to navigate an elementary school parking lot with kids running all over the place and crossing at random spots. The idea of a robot car delivering my kids to school so I don't have to is appealing, however I can't imagine a worse application of the technology, given the reality of the situation.