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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

#51

Post by hutzlibu »

tsimionescu wrote: post #43
hutzlibu wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now imagine all those cyclists and pedestrians would also drive a car, would also be on the road at the same time. You think driving would be less stressfull then?

In my expeirence, it is far more common for cyclists to break traffic rules than it is for cars to do so. Even pedestrians are far more likely to cross on a red light than cars, for example. The vast majority of humans have some respect for the fact that they are in charge of a ton or more of hulking metal when driving a car, and thus take on more responsibility. Drinking and driving is far less common than drinking…

If a car makes a misstake - that is a 2 ton fast projectile. If a cyclist does, it is a 150 kg and way slower one - that's the difference and the post I replied to did not say anyone was breaking any rules. Just that there were so many of them. But if they all would be driving cars instead - it would just mean traffic jam.

So maybe be thankful for those people choosing to not contribute to more traffic jam. And noise. And pollution.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#52

Post by samstave »

Why not create autonomous A-B trains.

A train that will take a smaller number of cars ONLY between point A and B. Then at each end offload to a truck.

Not the same as current rail frieght, I am saying a dedicated track between say port of oakland and port of long beach - with some intermediary way points along the way - it just has two lines - there, and back with a dedicated automated train that simply goes back and forth - with gantry ports the train drives beneath at certain locations to lift off cars quickly for that node.

We have done a poor job of leveraging rail in a future-proof manner...

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#53

Post by foofie »

Edman274 wrote: post #26

I often see logic along the lines of "if autonomous vehicles are safer than people, then let's deploy them" and that logic straight-up does not fly in the real world. In the real world, among the techno-pessimists, that is an outrageously low bar. Most accidents and deaths that happen because of human drivers occur because the driver was doing something illegal, which means the bar that we have for even humans is hig…

> 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 accidents caused by autonomous driving is orders of magnitude lighter than those applied to human drivers.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#54

Post by creer »

WhatsTheBigIdea wrote: post #24

tldr; Why not slow down when sensor range is shorter than stopping distance? It seems the basic argument is that sensor range is not always long enough to fully encompass stopping distance, but the data presented in the article shows that this is only the case at 70mph. At 50mph, it seems that sensor tech is well within requirements in all published conditions. Perhaps an autonomous truck could simply slow down when…

In many places in the US, the road system is already insufficient. Certainly completely insufficient in California. There is no space for self-truck traffic to move significantly slower than driven-truck traffic. Either self-trucks can safely reach speed parity or there is much less space for them.

Another response mentions there are easy routes that could be self-trucked first. That would work.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#55

Post by nativeit »

lvl102 wrote: post #41

We need smart roads. Not just smart cars. Until that happens, autonomous is impractical. You don’t want to build an autonomous system to match human error rate. That basically got us nowhere in the past seven years since Elon bs’d his way to selling vaporware.

Aaaaand we’re back to reinventing trains. There should be a name for this phenomenon. How long do tech folks discuss how to improve transportation until they attempt to reinvent trains?

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#56

Post by daveguy »

silvestrov wrote: post #10

If he thinks driving cars in cities is the easiest problem, he does not have experience driving a car in a European city with lots of cyclists and pedestrians. Driving a car in inner Copenhagen is a stressful situation due to the insane number of cyclist you have to watch out for, see https://youtu.be/FaySp9i2zMA?t=113

City driving is obviously more difficult than highway driving. I don't know how in the world he came to the conclusion highway driving is more difficult. Especially if you consider the truck form factor in a city.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#58

Post by nativeit »

nativeit wrote: post #55
lvl102 wrote: post #41

We need smart roads. Not just smart cars. Until that happens, autonomous is impractical. You don’t want to build an autonomous system to match human error rate. That basically got us nowhere in the past seven years since Elon bs’d his way to selling vaporware.

Aaaaand we’re back to reinventing trains. There should be a name for this phenomenon. How long do tech folks discuss how to improve transportation until they attempt to reinvent trains?

Come to think of it, wouldn’t it be much more logical to automate trains first?

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#59

Post by nine_k »

thriftwy wrote: post #35
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #13

"Now let’s compare these distances with the capabilities of various sensors:" Many cars monitor rotational speed of the tires in order to determine whether a wheel is slipping. A Model 3 can detect whether a tire is new or old based on tread depth, something I learned the hard way. If trucks were outfitted with rotational encoders on all tires, 'slipperiness' could be monitored periodically by, for example, tapping b…

Trucks operating in fleet on the same route are called "the railway". That's what that your driverless fixed route trucks will have to compete with.

Unlike a railway train, trucks operating in fleets assemble and disassemble easily, without stopping, when their routes converge or diverge. They also can operate with a number of other vehicles between them.

Rails are a more efficient interface to wheels, but also more demanding, and less flexible. 10-lane freeways are widespread, but most railways have two pairs of rails at best, and one pair in many places. You can't effectively use them without strict scheduling.

Re: Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare

#60

Post by foofie »

creer wrote: post #27
Edman274 wrote: post #26

I often see logic along the lines of "if autonomous vehicles are safer than people, then let's deploy them" and that logic straight-up does not fly in the real world. In the real world, among the techno-pessimists, that is an outrageously low bar. Most accidents and deaths that happen because of human drivers occur because the driver was doing something illegal, which means the bar that we have for even humans is hig…

Truck or cars are not strictly required to operate in all conditions in the current system: roads, entire freeways close when the conditions demand. Or demand that vehicles stop and put on chains. There is precedent.

> Truck or cars are not strictly required to operate in all conditions in the current system: roads, entire freeways close when the conditions demand. Or demand that vehicles stop and put on chains. There is precedent.

I think you're confusing things. Weather changes midway anyone's drive, and all drivers are required to drive safely and reliably even during sudden extreme meteorological events.

For a road to be closed, it takes an administrative action that reflects a decision that's largely arbitrary. Until a third party makes that decision, any driver is required to drive safely and reliability, regardless of the weather.

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