How Much Will Autonomous Cars Really Help? (theconversation.com)

An anonymous reader writes: An opinion piece at The Conversation questions the common belief that autonomous vehicles will easily solve a host of problems with road-based travel, including safety and traffic. "Assuming autonomous vehicles were one meter apart and traveling at 100 kilometers per hour (an aim that has been stated as the ultimate hope) this would mean around 25,000 people per hour could be taken down a freeway lane. While impressive, this movement capacity is only half that of a train. But getting to this capacity means 100% of vehicles are under control of a guidance system, with none under independent control. As soon as one car does this, the whole system would slow down considerably, as is seen on freeways now." The writer argues that a better role for autonomous cars might be to take passengers to and from hubs for public transportation.

Comments

"asphalt cheaper/more effective than rails"

[Nova Express]

For the ostensible purpose of transporting people too and from the places they want to go, sure.

But that's not the real reason politicians push for rail-based transit.

The real reason politicians love rail transport is that there's so much greater opportunities for graft, kickbacks, patronage and campaign donations.

* Expensive trains with expensive contracts
* Expensive construction with expensive contracts
* Expensive donations and lobbying for rail stop locations
* Expensive land purchase deals for favored real estate agents and land owners
* Expensive union contracts to run and maintain the trains.
* Great "green energy" kickback subsidies from the federal government
* By benefiting (mostly) rich white people instead of (mostly) poor minorities, it helps rake in campaign contributions from the Right People

Old fashioned existing streets and bus lines offer so many fewer opportunities to get on the gravy train. And rail also offers the smug satisfaction of "being green"...