How Europe Will Lower Emissions — Self Driving Cars 317
thecarchik writes "Scientists in Europe are working closely with industry and government as part of a new initiative called SARTRE (SAfe Road TRains for the Environment), which hopes to develop self-driving technology that will allow vehicles to drive autonomously in long road trains on the highway. The team behind SARTRE has now conducted its first real world test, using a sole Volvo S60 sedan that followed a lead truck around the automaker's test facility near Gothenburg, Sweden. In the video, the driver is free to take his eyes off the road and his hands off the wheel. In fact, he uses neither his hands nor feet during the test. Subsequent phases of the work will be carried out in 2011, and early 2012 will see the concept demonstrated on a five-vehicle road train with strategies handling interaction with other road users."
No. Way. (Score:3, Insightful)
If people wanted to be on a train in Europe, they have plenty of opportunities to do so.
Re:No. Way. (Score:5, Insightful)
That is completely beside the point.
Driving is fun when you're out driving for fun. But the daily commute is annoying and tedious. Especially with high traffic and traffic jams, such a system could free a lot of time for the occupant of the car.
On top of that, the risk of collision through inattention would be lowered. All around a good idea and not comparable to actual trains, because the moment you leave the highway, I'd assume, you'd be in control again and free to travel everywhere and not just where the buses and trains go.
Basically, this takes the pros from trains and replaces the cons of personal travel with them.
And nobody said you couldn't keep driving yourself on a leisure cruise.
Re:Just stop it (Score:5, Insightful)
Excuse me for being blunt, but you're an idiot.
Switzerland has one of the best public transportation systems I am aware of. And still, a 45 minute commute by car can often turn into 1.5h or more on public transportation, including standing around in the cold in winter for any amounts of time.
If you live in a city and work there, too, then yes, public transportation is a great thing. I wouldn't use my car to get to work there either. But believe it or not, even with all the congestion around Zurich, it was still much faster to drive when I had to back in the days.
Frankly, everyone else can go fuck themselves if they believe I'd sacrifice between one and three hours every day because they can't fix the society so they expect me to fix their problems for them.
Because, make no mistake, using public transportation is very stressful for me and don't even get me started on doing something productive with that time. Because you can't. If you have to change transportation every 10 to thirty minutes, you just CAN'T concentrate on something of consequence. Especially with all the noise that goes on around you. I know, I've tried for four long years.
Now that might be different if you're travelling first class. But, keeping the lack of flexibility in mind (because owning a car AND using public transportation is economic bullshit), public transportation becomes very, very expensive all of a sudden.
So I'd like to ask you to shut up and stop applying your situation to everybody else. Just because YOU can be happy and content with public transportation does not mean everybody else can.
Re:Just stop it (Score:2, Insightful)
Translation: I live too far away from my job by choice, and the unavoidable commuting overhead makes me uncontrollably angry.
Less Is More (Score:2, Insightful)
While I don't disagree with you I think the point made was that people live far away from their places of work regardless. In terms of planning that's not economically logical or environmentally friendly.
In the past decades we have focused on bringing people to buildings, while we should be looking at this issue from the point of the least possible impact and cost on a macroeconomic scale. Unless you perform a service in person or require expensive machinery there's no reason you should commute.
We should focus more on creating a new culture, and economic conditions where it's profoundly more beneficial for employers and employees to telecommute. Why waste energy and money unless there's an actual need? Society as a whole should increase the cost of transport for non-essential travel during the morning/afternoon commute and create incentives for telecommuting for everyone involved. And possibly make more use of differential pricing [of road use/fuel] based upon "classes" of users?
Re:Just stop it (Score:5, Insightful)
See? Fix the society first. This is exactly what I meant.
Switzerland does not have a real estate market as flexible as America. Once you've bought a home, you're likely going to stay there for a few decades if not your whole life.
Do you expect BOTH me and my wife to find jobs near our home (or vice versa) and keep them for the rest of our lives? Do you truly think that's a realistic outlook on life?
It doesn't matter whether you think I'm just bitching around. Fact is, a lot of people have to deal with these questions. If you don't, great for you. We do. So you'll have to excuse us for making different decisions than you do.
I am of the opinion that bending over backwards for some concept like environmentalism is pretty stupid. If we, as a society, want to reach certain goals (clean environment) then we need to implement global changes that will make it easier for us to achieve those. Not just demand everyone buckle down and 'do their part'. Because then someone has to define what this 'part' is and you can bet your sweet ass it's going to be defined by people who aren't inconvenienced by what they define.
Re:Just stop it (Score:5, Insightful)
Impressively polite rejoinder :-)
However, I disagree with your premise - road trains ARE an example of innovative thinking.
Coming up with a likely-to-be-practical transportation system of the future isn't that difficult. There are several personal-rapid-transport proposals around that would probably work well if you were building a new city from scratch.
The hard part is the TRANSITION, and building a new system while we're still using the old. Road trains are an excellent transition technology.
What the future has in store (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it's pretty obvious that technologies along these lines (self-piloting automobiles) are the way of the future. The big question is how do we make the leap from where we are now to where we want to be? Clearly, the ideal would be to have the autonomous systems able to react and work around existing drivers on the road, but I have a feeling that it won't be too long before systems like these ones are incentivized in some way so that the transition is both easier and safer.
For instance, carpool lanes in some locations already permit motorists driving greener cars to use the lane, even if they're alone. 10, 15, or 20 years from now, whenever this technology finally matures and starts to enter the consumer market, the same sort of thing will likely be applied. We'll simply see the autonomous systems engaged whenever motorists enter a specific lane dedicated to their use. It allows manufacturers to prove that the technology works, instills confidence in it among drivers, gives them obvious benefits for choosing it, and can be used as a transition phase to having roads that are occupied predominately by self-driving vehicles. Over time, what began as a luxury will become a standard feature, just as has happened dozens or hundreds of other times in the industry, and soon enough, all new cars will be equipped with the system. Not long after that, legislation will require it of all street-legal cars.
In the long term, cars driven by actual people will be in the minority, and will likely be barred from driving on regular roads. They'll likely be regulated and restricted to only operating in specific places (e.g. enthusiast race tracks, special lanes in traffic, etc.). I'm not suggesting I like this, mind you, but I have been trying to figure out how a transition from piloted to pilotless automobiles would work and what it would look like once it was completed. The only result I can see is that piloted cars get relegated to a role not at all unlike that of horses today: used by enthusiasts in specific locations and circumstances, but not for general use in travel and transportation.
Re:No. Way. (Score:5, Insightful)
Only certain vehicles can be lead vehicles.
At least until the system is cracked. There must be all kinds of fun things you can do if you spoof it.
Yeah, you can also throw a washing machine from your pickup on the highway. No need to spoof anything.