Robocabs Coming to Europe

Roland Piquepaille writes "Almost all of us can recall both good and poor memories of taxi rides when we arrived in a city we didn't know. This is why a short article from Spiegel Online, 'Bringing Robot Transportation to Europe,' caught my eye this morning. It briefly describes the European 'CityMobil' project which involves 28 partners in 10 countries at a cost of €40 million. This project plans to eliminate city drivers and three trial sites have already been selected. For example, in 2008, Terminal 5 in London's Heathrow airport will be connected to the car park by driverless electric cars along a 4-kilometer track. Read more for additional pictures and references about this project to make the roads in Europe's cities more efficient."

Comments

Along a track?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean, like trains and subways?

Already done

[dayid]

So you mean by 2008 we'll have reverted back to trollies and cable-cars? Perhaps people will even ride in electric vehicles that carry 30 or more people! Then everyone can get there for a tenth of the price! Oh wait, no that's a bus...

1) Take age old idea.
2) Do the same thing only with added benefit of key words.
3) Sell it as a new idea
4) Get fools to buy it.
5) PROFIT!!

Yeah, that's right, no "?????" step here.

Re:Don't need that either

[YrWrstNtmr]

You could get by with one tenth the number of cars on the road today.

You'd have exactly the same number of cars on the road as you have now.
Unless you increase the number of passengers per vehicle, or decrease the number of powered trips (bicycles/feet), it would be the same number of trips here and there. There might be fewer vehicles in total circulation, but the number in motion at any one time would be the same. There would, of course, be fewer sitting around in driveways and parking lots.

You could reduce te number of cars sold every year by a factor of ten.

Wear and tear. If you and 9 other people in your neighborhood all used one car, how long would it last at 200,000 miles per year?
Who mediates when all 10 of you need to get to work at the same time, in different places?

They could mostly be electric, thus quieter and centralizing the smog makers at power plants.

This has zero to do with power source. Electric could happen with or without robocars.

Re:The past is here, only more intimate.

[legoburner]

I agree with you, and have been hoping that some day they start doing this in denser areas. Being able to use advanced routing methods to move people from A to B in place of the inefficient and unaware cars and buses of today would be very useful. There are a few problems I can think of that need to be sorted out to get this to work properly though:
- Efficient routing around disasters, with breakdown detection to prevent a single system failure from breaking the entire network.
- Some sort of weight detection system to ensure that people do not leave anything on the vehicles (bags, bombs, etc). Normally a driver would point these things out but automated systems lack that ability.
- Some sort of 'digital nose' type device to detect the vehicles which have stink bombs, vomit, and whatever other lovely smells that can be accrued by frequent usage in a densely populated area, and allow the vehicles to be removed from service and cleaned instantly.
- Decent integration with pedestrians. They need to be able to go as fast as possible so that fewer vehicles are needed, but must not clog up roads for traffic and pedestrians. Ideally some sort of sunken road could be used where appropriate perhaps, allowing large boulevards at ground level, and enabling their usage in pedestrianised areas.
- Easy to use for disabled people.
- Free or cheaper than driving a car or taking a bus.
- Must run at all hours, not be limited like public transport is, as this encourages people to either stumble around cities drunk after clubs close, or sometimes risk driving home.

That is all that I can think of right now, anyone got any others? A private public-transport would be very welcome.