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Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

kevinchen.co

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Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#331

Post by lmpdev »

ChainOfFools wrote: post #277
AlexandrB wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem few people talk about is the small, in-city rail lines that used to exist that don't anymore. 100 years ago the city I live in had dedicated rail lines going to every major factory in the city - there was little need for last-mile trucking. AFAIK there are no western cities that are organized like this anymore, so the best you can do is deliver goods to a rail station and truck it from there - thi…

I live in a city that has some of these going through it, and I can say that my opinions changed dramatically after moving here, with respect to this idea. Our real estate agent, in hindsight, had employed numerous subtle tactics to discourage us from taking serious interest in homes that were within a quarter mile or so of these lines, although I was completely oblivious to what they were doing at the time. What I d…

Not all locomotives are equal, electric is much quieter than diesel

Both older DC and newer AC trains are effectively silent when coasting on a straight

The main sources of noise are cornering and braking. I live in a rare city that has narrow gauge for all of our rail, and am less than 200m from the busiest corridor in our state

I regret chosing an apartment on a tight bend (narrow gauge's bends are especially loud)

But if I were to live 500m away parallel to the track (as in, still 200m away from the track) the mostly AC electric trains going by every few minutes would be largely inaudible (My main point is tracks aren't loud, tight corners and areas around stops can be loud

I fear city planners aren't testing their decisions closely enough, though

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#332

Post by lmpdev »

twelvechairs wrote: post #299
ChainOfFools wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a rail expert, not even a casual spectator. But my unstudied impression is that the noise that penetrates the most is the ultra-low frequency rumble that comes from the diesel side of the drivetrain, with a secondary source being steel on steel squealing of bogeys around bends at the minimal range of their tolerance. But the latter doesn't have the penetrating power of the former, not by a long shot, so to elimin…

Or just use electrified trains in the first place, like most of the modern world

Electric doesn't eliminate cornering and braking noises unfortunately, which I find as more pronounced open problems

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#333

Post by WirelessGigabit »

coalteddy wrote: post #308
capitainenemo wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm. I did a quick search on freight percentages, EU vs US and google gave me this snippet off the top hit. "46 percent of European freight goes by truck while only 11 percent goes by rail, while in the United States more than 40 percent goes by rail while just 30 percent goes on the highway." Seems US is doing pretty well on prioritising freight rail transport, despite brainwashing, at least compared to europe. Which…

The reason is probably because, in the EU, passenger rail transport is prioritised over cargo. For example in Switzwerland rail cargo is mainly transported during the night because thats the only time the network isn't working at it's limit for the passenger trains. In Canada, to my understanding, it's the other way round where passenger trains have been reduced because of the need for more cargo train trips. The USA…

In the USA most railroad are owned by the railroad company. When Amtrak wants to use a piece of rail they pay the railway.

But the USA is VAST. Freight trains are LONG. Not much of America's West is actually double track. And when you have a shorter Amtrack and a long freight train the Amtrack loses. The Amtrack has to wait until the freight train has passed.

As the freight trains run on PSR [1] there is no fixed time as to when they pass and thus the Amtrack can not run reliable.

As such it is easier for me to drive from West Los Angeles to Las Vegas, or even to drive to LAX and then fly to LAS than it is to take the train.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_railroading

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#334

Post by Spivak »

8note wrote: post #216
ivalm wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But issue is that human safety is kind of long tailed. Eg more than a third of all fatal crashes are DUI. I’m guessing if you take out high risk behaviours then the rate will be an order of magnitude lower. What we care about is not being better then an average driver (which basically is bad due to high risk individuals), but better than median driver.

I dunno. If you got all the duo drivers to automatically kick in self driving, then a ton of the most dangerous drivers would be much less dangerous

Yes but this misses it, autopilot being better than a drunk driver but worse than the median driver isn't enough unless they only use it when they were going to drive drunk which is kinda a political nonstarter. Otherwise the overwhelmingly sober usage of the feature makes it a net loss in driver quality weighted by miles driven.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#335

Post by georgeplusplus »

beedeebeedee wrote: post #247

Build more railroads. (I used to work for an autonomous truck company, and when you factor in the cost of roads in addition to the development of the trucks, it makes absolutely no sense to do autonomous trucking when you could do trains. As a culture, we've been brainwashed not to fund trains. We collectively spend billions and billions on roads but would not dare spend money to build more tracks. It is shocking and…

That doesn’t seem like a fair comparison.

A rail line is single use, single destination. commuter and cargo cannot mix (one goes high speed and one goes super slow) if they do mix it shuts the entire segment of the track down until it’s off that track.

Roads are multi use , multi location. It seems unfair to compare the cost based on road maintenance vs track maintenance. I would expect something to account for the sheer difference in volume each does

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#336

Post by manquer »

kevinchen wrote: post #293
karaterobot wrote: post #132

> No guarantee of a timely response from remote operators or backend services. > Therefore, all safety-critical decisions must be made by the onboard computer alone. Why is the requirement that all safety-critical decisions must be made on board, versus the seemingly-simplifying assumption that only some or most decisions would have to be made on board, because a remote operator or backend service could be available…

Author here. At the mean time between failures needed to exceed human performance, the uptime of the network connection quickly becomes a limiting factor. It’s possible to pick only routes that have great cell coverage but this limits commercial viability.

Remote does not mean just sitting in a room far away. It could be simply one truck with a lead driver and few automated ones following it closely. Road trains are an option. Even just two autonomous trailers to a lead truck will reduce the driver costs by 2/3rds.

Unlike autonomous cars where everyone needs to go wherever, inter city trucks have fixed well known routes with predicable volume of cargo that can be easily chained together.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#337

Post by foofie »

bluGill wrote: post #97
foofie wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We'd demand a way higher standard because these companies don't really have any skin in the game, except for financial penalties which we now understand is not a deterrent for anything. I'll add that one of the penalties for accidents caused by human error is a prison term. Until a Tesla/Uber/Waymo exec responsible for autonomous driving can serve a prison term for accidents caused by their service, the penalty for…

> one of the penalties for accidents caused by human error is a prison term. Really? How does anyone get that. I've only seen murder with a car worth 90 days in jail and loss of the car.

> Really? How does anyone get that.

In the US, vehicular homicide comes with a sentence that's typically between 9 and 30 years.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#338

Post by manquer »

beedeebeedee wrote: post #247

Build more railroads. (I used to work for an autonomous truck company, and when you factor in the cost of roads in addition to the development of the trucks, it makes absolutely no sense to do autonomous trucking when you could do trains. As a culture, we've been brainwashed not to fund trains. We collectively spend billions and billions on roads but would not dare spend money to build more tracks. It is shocking and…

Why not road trains ? One lead driver with few of autonomous trailers ? In a ideal world more rail roads in places it makes sense to develop and maintain dedicated track infrastructure, cheaper running costs ( fuel, tires, wear and tear etc ) justify the upfront costs.

Road trains are both intermediate solution everywhere and also can operate in routes where trains are not economical enough, even if there was a will to do it.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#339

Post by CoffeeOnWrite »

cityofdelusion wrote: post #287
Varriount wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kinds of noise do the trains produce? Do you think there are any ways to lessen it, and/or have any been implemented? (I'm thinking something like sound barriers).

I’ve lived near tracks a couple times and the loudest by far is the horn from at-grade crossings. If you are a heavy sleeper and a few blocks away it might not matter, but if you are nearby it is incredibly loud.

For what it’s worth, I lived 50 yards from an at-grade freight track in the city, where from 10pm-7am the trains did not blow their horns, relying on the crossing protective lights and gates only, and that worked for me. Charming train horns during the day (yes they occasionally interrupted me when speaking during video meetings, but it was quaint and no big deal), peace and quiet at night. Great neighborhood, quite desirable, and I would be happy to live there again in the future.

Not sure the safety track record, but if it’s favorable, perhaps this kind of program could be expanded.

https://www.sanjoseca.gov/your-government/departments-office...

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#340

Post by intrasight »

prof-dr-ir wrote: post #14

This article is certainly interesting, but none of these arguments are new so it could have been written five years ago. It would be interesting to hear what a company like Aurora and their backers were thinking back in 2020. It seems unlikely that they did not come up with these arguments themselves, so what were the counterarguments?

Aurora backer here (small investor LOL). Their thinking is that they can make money. The "driverless bar" presented in the article is pretty meaningless.
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