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ULTra Robo-Taxi
irksome writes: "Found a link on msnbc about a driver-less taxi pod. According to the article, the vehicle has begun road tests in the city of Cardiff, Wales. The pod, known as ULTra (Urban Light Transport) could make driver-free transport a reality and not just the stuff of futuristic fantasy."
it's setting the pace for the important stuff. As soon as people get used to trusting these glorified mass transit devices, computer run cars won't be dismissed as a pipe dream.
Since the technology is already here, the important advances in travel will come as soon as there is a market. When I say the technology is already here, I mean that no scientific discovery is needed to pull this off, just some clever engineers and bit pushers.
We should applaud the invention becasue of what it will lead to, instead of ridiculing the present "state of the art."
I'm a concientious
Go ahead and build it, but build it privately. That way, if it fails to provide the service people want, it will simply go away.
The article says it costs "only half as much as Light Rail", but so what? One Light Rail sytem of my acquaintence, San Jose CA, costs 8 times more to operate than it brings in through ticket sales.
The taxpayers are stuck with this bloated wart-hog of a white elephant, a political monstrosity that cannot be allowed to go away.
So maybe this ULTra really is the next GreatThing(tm, us pat off). If so it will pay for itself, and investors will be happy to build it in order to profit from it.
At least that way no one is forced to pay for something they don't want.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Am I the only person who actually LIKES to drive? My commute is the best part of my day. Everyone talkes about the idea of cars that drive themselves as something great... Personally It is something I dread. Do you think this will make cars safer? Do you trust the software that much?
By god, I don't see the wonder in it.
--T
http://www.theMediaBunker.com
I outran this bus one day while biking home from work. We started nearly even at timepoint C (Lake Mead and Rainbow) and went south. By the time I had to turn eastward halfway between timepoints G and H (Tropicana and Rainbow), I was barely ahead of the bus. I made all the stops the lights imposed; the bus made the stops it needed to pick up and drop off passengers. I'm not exactly in the best shape (kinda overweight, actually) and my bike isn't a racing bike (it's a six-speed cruiser), but I didn't have to work too hard at keeping up with the bus. I think I did somewhere around 25 km/h (give or take a bit) most of the way, IIRC.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
There are other related systems that perform at much higher speed. My personal favourite is SkyTran, which is a MagLev system that operates at up to 150MPH, doesn't suffer from congestion, and because it doesn't have to stop at intersections, or to pick up and set down other passengers, it's actually much quicker and more convenient than any other form of transportation, including private cars.
And instead of running on inconvenient roads, you just need to build a special 1.5 meter track to your destination. My, this IS cheaper and easier than driving!
The track for these systems costs heaps less than the same distance worth of road, and has less wear-and-tear (especially in the case of SkyTran). A city implementing this instead of just blindly building more roads will actually turn a profit on it within a decade.
What's more, the absence of drivers means no speeding, running red lights, no pedestrians getting knocked down, no drunk drivers.
These systems could quite easily replace the automobile, and they bring so many benefits there's no reason why cities shouldn't be planning things this way now.