RIDEGURU
Is this a possibility, or something that might happen in the future (near or far)?
Will self-driving cars take away public transportation?
Posted 6 years ago
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AdiK
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Ride Apprentice
I want to start a rideshare company like Uber
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Comments
People diss on public transportation, but it's a public service. I doubt it will go away. One problem with rideshares is that as they become more popular, they become worse due to traffic. They shoot themselves in the foot.
Until Uber opens up its own private subway through major cities, it ain't gonna happen.
Uber has been eyeing the buses and freight/trucking for years. Uber Pool Express (bus) and UberFreight are two examples.
they haven't even gotten a self-driving car not to crash yet. no need to rush this
in the days of Autonomous Vehicles, what is public transportation, right? Is it riding any car that isnt owned by me? it is me sharing a vehicle with other people? If so, does carpooling like UberPOOL count? Does it have to be owned by the city or government?
The line starts to blur a little bit, right?
It's not blurry at all. Public transportation is provided by the government. That's what it is. There is no way you could call anything Uber public transportation.
So hyperloop will never be a public transportation?
In Japan, the national railsystem (i.e. train and subways) was bought by prviate entities from the government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Railways_Group
Hyperloop? Only if it is administered by the government...
It depends how the privatization happens. A lot of public services are contracted out to private contractors, but that doesn't make them private. The govt is still in charge and can fire the contractor(s) if they don't perform to their expectations.
I don't know specifically how the japan system works. A lot of rail systems have been privatized throughout the world.
are taxis who are administered by the city public transportation? no, I am really wondering.
I know there is already a trend where people just take UberX instead of bus or subway. So if AVs come along, and it is cheaper and faster? Sure, maybe we can go without them.
but larger vehicles (if you are going to call it) will always be cheaper as it promotes efficiency.
AVs are going to clog the roads up. I don't care how smart they are, they are not going to bust through gridlock unless they pick up the ability to fly.
Part of the appeal of AVs is that they can communicate and coordinate with each other to keep the flow of traffic going. If all the vehicles on the road were AVs we wouldn't need traffic lights. Gridlock as a phenomenon would be completely eliminated.
But, even in that ideal situation, congestion could still be a problem, because even AVs are limited by the laws of physics. They can only go so fast safely, and can only accelerate and decelerate so quickly. So a road has a limited throughput.
And, a world where all cars are AVs is surely very far in the future, if it ever happens at all. Until then, there will always be human driver screwing everything up for the robots.
We all know how it will be. We already covered this:
apparently once self driving technology is advanced enough there will be no traffic and cars will be able to move along faster. I could see public transporation going down...
would this be cheaper than public transportation I'm assuming? how will it handle the sheer volume? especially in cities like NYC where millions of people are relying on public transportation to get to work every single day.
hopefully i will not be alive to see that day .
hopefully not any time soon! can't seem to figure out how these rideshare things work, I'll never trust a self-driving car
That's the goal. Ultimately, what the biggest companies are trying to do is change the way our economy operates with self-driving cars. That's how they will make the most money and have the biggest impact on society.