Germany Launches World's First Autonomous Tram (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: The world's first autonomous tram was launched in unspectacular style in the city of Potsdam, west of Berlin, on Friday. The Guardian was the first English-language newspaper to be offered a ride on the vehicle developed by a team of 50 computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and physicists at the German engineering company Siemens. Fitted with multiple radar, lidar (light from a laser), and camera sensors, forming digital eyes that film the tram and its surroundings during every journey, the tram reacts to trackside signals and can respond to hazards faster than a human. Its makers say it is some way from being commercially viable but they do expect it to contribute to the wider field of driverless technology, and have called it an important milestone on the way to autonomous driving. Travelling in real traffic from the tram depot of Potsdam's transport company ViP, the articulated Combino model tram whirred its way through a high-rise housing settlement in the south-eastern district of Stern on Friday, contending with bikes, prams and cars which sometimes haphazardly crossed its path during the 3.7-mile (6km) route.

Comments

I call bullshit

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Autonomous trains are so easy that hobbyists have been doing it in O and HO and N scale in their basements for 40 years.

I've seen plenty of autonomous trains and trams. What about Disney's famous peoplemover experiment?

Re:I call bullshit

[AlanObject]

What about Disney's famous peoplemover experiment?

Or for that matter the automated inter-terminal trams found in Denver, San Francisco, Dallas, or dozens of other major airports all around the world?

All those systems are automated and remote monitored and extremely high reliability while being very highly utilized and relied upon. Imagine the chaos if one of those automated rail systems went down at a busy time. So they have to have damn near five-nines availability and they seem to.

Re:I call bullshit

[jellomizer]

I get the feeling that you are not a Train Operator/Engineer, neither am I. However I expect a full scale version of such a job is much more complex, then your Hobby train set (where if the train derailed, you just pick it up and put it back on the track). Also many of these other sources are rather closed track systems, not dealing with multiple I/O, complex weather and track conditions.

Re:I call bullshit

[starless]

Except that it's not a train with exclusive use of the tracks, it's a tram
"contending with bikes, prams and cars which sometimes haphazardly crossed its path"

Re:I call bullshit

[starless]

Most (all?) inter-terminal airport trams I've seen don't have anything else that can occupy their tracks.

Re:I call bullshit

[MDMurphy]

I have operated a vehicle like this, a light rail vehicle operating in traffic. It does seem to be a good use case for autonomy. While the requirements would be less than a car, it's definitely more than one operating in a loop on a closed course like at an airport. There are obstacles to contend with. While the track may be separate, there is car traffic to watch out for as well as pedestrians who step out in front of you. Unlike a car, you don't have the option to swerve around an obstacle but are limited to speeding up, slowing down or stopping. For the system to react to vehicles or people in its path seems straightforward enough, but I would think that discerning intent would be harder. A person just outside your path that's looking at you, waiting for you to pass is different than a person at the same spot with their back to you wearing headphones. I also wonder how long before these types of vehicles are targets of mischief. Would a traffic cone or cardboard box plopped on the track bring the train to a halt? Could (or should) a remote operator override the system and drive over it? I can't see them opening the doors to have a passenger move it out of the way. A similar thing in a street might be dealt with by a human driver, but on a dedicated track, the obstacle could be there a while.

Re: I call bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Trains content with people on tracks too.... just that a relatively high portion of them do not survive manned or not.

Re:I call bullshit

[cayenne8]

contending with bikes, prams and cars

What's a pram??

Re:I call bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's bullshit.
OK so the tram will stop for obstacles that are bigger than a cat and not higher than 1 meter 50. If you're a small cat on the tracks or a big cat on an overhanging branch, you're out of luck.
But guess what -- nobody (except selected press and a driver whose job is to press the emergency button) is allowed to ride that tram. Because Germany.
Also, nothing was launched. Disappointing.

Re:I call bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

And what would it do if it detects a pram on the tracks? Stop?

Re:I call bullshit

[nospam007]

"Also many of these other sources are rather closed track systems, not dealing with multiple I/O, complex weather and track conditions"

OTOH, they don't need complex map software, no steering necessary, no doubling and in all the countries with trams, they always have the absolute priority of way, because due to their iron on iron wheels abrupt stopping is impossible. They also don't care about snow or ice on the tracks.
What multiple inputs? They just have to watch in front of them and the only decision the computer has to do is GO or NO GO.

Re:I call bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

A small boat. Sea level rise associated with global warming means that roadways will also have to serve as waterways.

Re:I call bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Just install some pinball flippers and you're good to go.

Re:I call bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

contending with bikes, prams and cars which sometimes haphazardly crossed its path

So they do what the staffed light rail trains and buses do now: Just run them over.

Re:I call bullshit

[drinkypoo]

What's a pram??

It's short for perambulator, which is British for baby carriage.

Re:I call bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Hobbyist trains in the basement don't kill a lot of people if something goes wrong, they don't have a schedule to keep and content with rain, snow, ice, airborne debris cluttering sensors and above all don't have to account for idiot users looking at their smartphones. On foot or in a truck.

Re:I call bullshit

[Obfuscant]

but I would think that discerning intent would be harder. A person just outside your path that's looking at you, waiting for you to pass is different than a person at the same spot with their back to you wearing headphones.

I live and drive in a college town. No, there really is no difference in the intent you can infer from either person.

I also wonder how long before these types of vehicles are targets of mischief.

The fact that it wasn't on it's virgin trip is remarkable, and can only be attributed to the fact it was a secret. Now it isn't.

Re:I call bullshit

[Obfuscant]

OTOH, they don't need complex map software, no steering necessary,

Many of the cities I've been that have trams really do have "steering" to worry about. Not that they have a steering wheel, but they have to identify a failure of the switching mechanism that has them turning when they shouldn't have, or vice versa. For example, in Munich, almost all the trams go by either the north or south or east side of the HBF, and they get switched into different tracks as the spread out around the city.

they always have the absolute priority of way,

"Priority of way" (right of way?) is a legal concept, not a physical reality. A tram that has the legal right of way and rams into a passenger car is still wrong.

They also don't care about snow or ice on the tracks.

Uhhh, what? And huh?

Re: I call bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a thing the one guy has to push a lot in Knights of the Round Table from Holy Grail.

Re:I call bullshit

[cavreader]

The Atlanta airport has had an automated tram for years. Although I think they made a mistake getting rid of the Cylon themed dialect they used for the in-transit announcements. Now it's just another generic female voice.

Re: I call bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

In Australia's Pilbara, the private rail networks owned by the mining companies send driverless trains of ore, hundreds of metres long, several hundred kilometres to port.

Not without some teething problems. IIRC there's about 30 level crossings, and a fully laden ore train doesn't stop easily for anything.

Re:I call bullshit

[Sique]

Just because a tram or light rail has right of way doesn't mean that the track is always clear. There are traffic lights, there are people crossing the rails, there are obstacles, and there might even be stop and go if the track runs along a traffic lane. The amount of caution necessary to operate a tram or light rail is about the same than a car, just the number of possible reactions is limited. And a tram needs mapping software too, as the switches are operated from the train, so for every branch, the autonomous tram has to know how to switch it, and it has to have a signalling mechanism in place to check the state of the rail switch.

Re:I call bullshit

[mjwx]

Most (all?) inter-terminal airport trams I've seen don't have anything else that can occupy their tracks.

All of the inter-terminal trains I've seen have had completely enclosed tracks. Its closer to automating the Las Vegas monorail, not much of anything is expected to be on the tracks. We over here in Europe and the UK would call those trains rather than trams.

The trams in Potsdam and many other European cities are run along roads which also have car and goods vehicle traffic. A tram is a light rail system following existing streets, in fact the colloquial difference between a train and a tram is that trams are run along roadways (sometimes without rails) where as train lines are laid off road (barring crossings). What you're calling a "tram" is what we'd call a train as it's on an independent set of tracks. An inter-terminal tram would be if LAX put some light rail on World Way that also interacted with traffic (and having been to LAX a few times... I doubt any AI would last an hour doing that, those bus drivers must have the patience of saints to be driving that road all day).

Re: I call bullshit

[Marxist Hacker 42]

With that kind of weight, you don't stop on a dime- even with a human operator. But the computer can react many milliseconds faster than any human. And it is easier to build level crossing emergency detectors than many people think.

Re:I call bullshit

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Pretty easy to build a 4g phone detector these days. It's off the shelf parts. But no train, even with a human operator, is going to stop quickly, there is too much mass in comparison to the size of the brakes.

Re:I call bullshit

[Marxist Hacker 42]

It didn't come up on a google search, but a few years ago CxO had a runaway swticher engine. It made it 250 miles before it ran out of diesel, and nobody got hurt, all the automated systems worked perfectly.

The biggest stress most engineers have to worry about today is boredom.

Re:I call bullshit

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Actually, just define a minimum safe distance to the side, and for the guy just waiting watching the train, blare horns and lights at him until he moves. Isn't that your only real option anyway for some idiot blocking the right of way?

Of course, there was that one time I was on the historical trolley in Astoria, Oregon that some idiot parked his minivan across the tracks. Was really good to have a human operator in that situation to run into the restaurant and warn people before it got towed away (didn't work, but it was a nice touch).

Re:I call bullshit

[Marxist Hacker 42]

No train is going to stop on a dime, they're too massive in comparison to the brakes- but I would say Lidar and Radar and a computer reacting in nanoseconds beats a human operator with a latency between brain and hand of 40 ms all hollow.

Re:I call bullshit

[Obfuscant]

Isn't that your only real option anyway for some idiot blocking the right of way?

Stopping might be a nice thing to do. The trams in Munich don't have horns. They have bells. They also have brakes.

... that some idiot parked his minivan across the tracks. Was really good to have a human operator in that situation to run into the restaurant and warn people before it got towed away

If all you can do it honk the horn and flash lights, then what was left to be towed away? You mean the trolley actually stopped? Hmmm..... I've been on the Astoria trolley and I know it, too, has brakes.

Re:I call bullshit

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The brakes are never enough. The light rail in Portland can take a half a block with the wheels locked up to stop. But once you are stopped, what is your option? You're stuck. Lights and horns are all you have.

Yeah, but that hundred year old trolley goes real slow. And isn't pulling a few thousand tons behind it. And doesn't even have any good warning equipment.

But it does have really cool reversable seats.

Re:I call bullshit

[Obfuscant]

The brakes are never enough.

Funny, I've seen trams stop using nothing but their brakes. I've seen them stop to keep from hitting a car in their path.

The light rail in Portland can take a half a block with the wheels locked up to stop.

There is a phrase in the law that deals with cars that don't stop in time to keep from hitting someone or something: too fast for conditions. It supersedes any engineering design factors concerning maximum speed, and can mean that someone going just 25 MPH in a 65 MPH zone will get a ticket.

Portland light rail is also not a tram. It's a train.

But once you are stopped, what is your option? You're stuck.

You are stuck until the thing you've stopped for has moved or been moved. AFTER you stop is not the issue I replied to, however. You said honking a horn and flashing lights was the only option. Stopping is a valid option, and works better than running over someone while honking the horn.

After you've stopped, you still have options other than just honking at the impediment. You get it towed, you have the police pull the person out of the way. If it is an inanimate thing, the driver gets out and moves it. So many more options than just "blaring a horn".

And isn't pulling a few thousand tons behind it.

The only data I could find in a quick search was for a Melbourne tram that listed the weight as just 25 tons. No tram pulls a "few thousand tons".

During normal stops, the trams I've been on have managed to go from cruise to stop in much less than half a block at a very low application of the brakes. Full braking would cut that to much less distance. Any tram driver that said "brakes aren't an option, I'm not even going to try" and runs someone down while honking the horn and flashing the lights is headed to jail.

Re:I call bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't go out much, do you? It's an object on wheels that carries a baby.

Not that impressed

[Rick Schumann]

Before any of you SDC fanbois start gushing about how impressive and wonderful this is and how it somehow proves that SDCs are more than they really are (which they're not): This is a train (even if they're calling it a 'tram'), it runs on a track (not maneuvering around freely on an open public road), and there's still a human being watching over it for when it screws up, so (hopefully) no one dies. The article claiming how it's a 'milestone for autonomous vehicles' is just more hype that's appropos of nothing. It's probably go $1,000,000 worth of sensors and software running it, so it can do marginally better than a human operator. Not all that impressive, not impressed, nothing to see here, really; moving along..

Re:Not that impressed

[Anonymous Coward]

So the submission is full of falsities? It is time to step into the hype train? Is it already the last train to tramcentral? Trams often do move on open public roads among the traffic and buildings within city centrals while they occasionally use more pronounced tracks when the speed is needed for longer distances within the same city or population center. You can usually tell the difference between a tram and a train from the height of the visible undercarriage.

Re:Not that impressed

[Rick Schumann]

They show a pic of the so-called 'autonomous tram', and it's on a track. Must be a German thing to call it a 'tram'.

Re:Not that impressed

[starless]

They show a pic of the so-called 'autonomous tram', and it's on a track. Must be a German thing to call it a 'tram'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

A tram (also tramcar; and in North America streetcar, trolley or trolley car or train car, and in Australia a billy cart) is a rail vehicle which runs on tramway tracks along public urban streets, and also sometimes on a segregated right of way

Re:Not that impressed

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't 'tram' the common name for those? In Charlotte (NC), they tend to be called light rail. But in France, they are commonly refered to as tramway abbreviated tram.

Turns out, yes that is the right name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tram

Re:Not that impressed

[JaredOfEuropa]

These things on tracks are called trams everywhere in Europe. And I've never heard the word tram used to refer to anything other than a tracked vehicle that to some degree shares the road with other traffic.

Making them autonomous is a good thing: my wife got rear-ended by a tram because the driver was dicking around on his cell phone, and the results were pretty bad: an extensive hospital stay & totaled car (she didn't get a dime from the f*ckers either). A self driving tram or one with anti collision might have prevented that accident.

Re:Not that impressed

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a tram, not a train.

Re: Not that impressed

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever seen a tram that doesn't need a track?

Whats the point?

[rossdee]

I can see the point of autonomous taxis, but in larger public transport (buses, trams, trains) the cost of the drivers wages is not that significant.

Re:Whats the point?

[jellomizer]

I think safety is a big concern. In the states (granted our train system is nearly a century out of date) however there have been some high profile accidents due to human error.

Re:Whats the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

In France, tram are often out because of strikes. So having them autonomous would be advantageous.

When public drivers are striking in Paris, only a couple lines of the subway are operating, because they are autonomous.

If the tram is fully autonomous, then you can also run them more often, and even at night.

Seems useful overall.

Re:Whats the point?

[ShanghaiBill]

in larger public transport (buses, trams, trains) the cost of the drivers wages is not that significant.

A bus costs about $200k and has a service life of about 12 years. An urban bus driver makes about $40k, and they usually run in two shifts, so that is $80k. Add in benefits and overhead, and weekend shifts, and the payroll cost is $150k annually to keep one bus operating. Over the 12 year life of the bus, that is $1.8M.

For buses, the cost of the driver far exceeds the cost of either the bus or the fuel.

Re:Whats the point?

[scamper_22]

Serious question. why would you say driver's wages are not that significant? They have to do shifts, vacations, covering, redundancy, overtime...

I would imagine they'd be among the largest operational costs of running the transit. What else is there? fuel?

Capital and Maintenance costs would be there as well.

I just did a quick google.
https://ny.curbed.com/2018/1/3...

https://www4.uwm.edu/cuts/utp/...

Driver cost is a very large expense.
"Here, there are several reasons, one of which is labor; the biggest single cost on buses is the driver, who is paid by the hour. (The other major costs are fuel consumption and maintenance.) "

Re:Whats the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.metro-magazine.com/...
"The new buses cost $413,000 each."

But you're probably underestimating the costs of the drivers as well ... management, vacations, training, hauling drivers to the routes, etc., really drive up overhead.

Re:Whats the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Googling turned up a better article:
https://www.thoughtco.com/bus-...

"Of the above costs, a majority is the cost of employee wages and benefits - about 70%."

Re:Whats the point?

[Jesus H Rolle]

I can see the point of autonomous taxis, but in larger public transport (buses, trams, trains) the cost of the drivers wages is not that significant.

Napkin math disagrees. A typical downtown streetcar probably averages 20 kph including stops. A quick google search says the typical streetcar driver makes about $20/hour. That's $1/km in wages to run one car. Google also says a bus burns 25l/100km. At $1/liter, that's $0.25/km in fuel costs to run one diesel bus (and so presumably diesel streetcar), and electric will be cheaper to run.

If the cost of wages disappears, formerly unprofitable hours and routes become viable. Less viable routes could even be served by small, lightweight streetcars - maybe even light enough that a pedestrian could survive a low-speed collision (especially given the quick braking response possible in a driverless system).

I'm actually not the biggest fan of streetcars, but if we're going to do them, driverless will be a higher-value system given the same infrastructure investment.

Re:Whats the point?

[ShanghaiBill]

Googling turned up a better article:
https://www.thoughtco.com/bus-...

"Of the above costs, a majority is the cost of employee wages and benefits - about 70%."

Thanks for the citation. The ratio of wages to other costs is lower for trains and trams, since they usually carry more people per driver. But lower wage cost is often the rationale for deploying them instead of buses, since other costs per passenger-mile are higher. Once buses are driverless, that rationale is no longer valid, and railed public-transit makes much less sense.

In fact, once you go driverless, even full sized buses make little sense. It would make more sense to use smaller vans that can run more often and on more flexible routes. This will appeal to many people that currently drive.

Driverless tech will revolutionize mass transit, and mostly in a good way.

Re:Whats the point?

[drinkypoo]

The ratio of wages to other costs is lower for trains and trams, since they usually carry more people per driver. But lower wage cost is often the rationale for deploying them instead of buses, since other costs per passenger-mile are higher. Once buses are driverless, that rationale is no longer valid, and railed public-transit makes much less sense.

There are lots of good reasons to use rail, not all of them have to do with cost of hiring the operators. Also, once you have self-driving, you want to get past buses ASAP and get right to vans, because buses suck.

Of course it's Germany

[argStyopa]

...nobody has as firm and universal a faith in the infallibility of technology as Germans.

To be fair, no people on the planet have as much REASON to believe in the infallibility of tech as Germans, either.

I know it's stereotyping, but I've worked for a German firm my entire adult life. I have around 30 years of examples.

Re:Of course it's Germany

[110010001000]

Yeah, we only have to look at the clean diesel technology coming out of Germany for an example of how great their tech is.

Re: Of course it's Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

so do 5 million Jews, but their experience was much shorter

Re:Of course it's Germany

[Rick Schumann]

That has nothing to do with failed tech, it has to do with the imminent sunset of the internal combustion engine, and how impossible it is to create one that isn't contributing to human-caused global warming, or at the very least, contributing to air pollution in general. Fully electric vehicles are going to be the future, but we're just not quite there yet.

Re:Of course it's Germany

[110010001000]

Thats great, but it still doesn't change the fact that the idea of German technological superiority is a myth, especially in transportation.

Re:Of course it's Germany

[commodore64_love]

>we only have to look at the clean diesel technology coming out of Germany for an example of how great their tech is

The technology of using Urea to neutralize NOx works perfectly (and will soon be added to Direct-injection gasoline cars too). For manufacturers like Chevrolet, Mercedes, BMW, Mack, Caterpillar, et cetera the neutralization works so well, NOx levels are essentially zero.

The only time it does Not work is when a company like Volkswagen decides "let's not install it, so we can save money." Obviously the tech can not work if it has never been installed!

Re:Of course it's Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Germans still believe in the cleanness of combustion engines when they have failed every test, all cheats have been discovered, they're illegal by every law. They still let them give people cancer as if nothing. Vorsprung durch Technik.

Re:Of course it's Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

In most other countries electric cars are the present or the imminent future. Even in China. The German state thinks it has to protect German car manufacturers that just happen to be a bit behind in electric cars, so no electric cars infrastructure for Germany just yet. Similar to how they're trying to punish Google for German media companies missing out on profits because they slept through the invention of the internet.

Re:Of course it's Germany

[drinkypoo]

The only time it does Not work is when a company like Volkswagen decides "let's not install it, so we can save money." Obviously the tech can not work if it has never been installed!

When you say "a company like Volkswagen", you do mean "a German automaker", right?

Re:Of course it's Germany

[Rick Schumann]

For purposes of this overall subject any alleged German 'superiority' of their tech is irrelevant.

Re:Of course it's Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the dozen or so non-German car makers that did the exact same thing (often with much higher real-world emissions) somehow don't count?

Re:Of course it's Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

Others are getting close though. According to Emissions Analytics, some newer PSA and Volvo diesels also meet Euro 6 in real-world conditions, although admittedly, they probably use a lot of German technology too.

Re: Of course it's Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I checked, German companies had been making electric cars since decades before it was cool. The big three German car makers have a huge electrification programme, with dozens of electric models coming out in the coming years. I don't think they are behind at all.

Re:Of course it's Germany

[commodore64_love]

The U.S. EPA went and measured the other diesel cars (re-tested them). Mercedes, BMW, Chevrolet all passed with flying colors, since they actually had the Urea/NOx neutralization system installed. They continue to be sold, since they are legally compliant.

Ditto over-the-road truck makers who use the same tech to keep freight trucks clean..... all passed EPA standards.

Re:Of course it's Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

The U.S. EPA went and measured the other diesel cars (re-tested them). Mercedes, BMW, Chevrolet all passed with flying colors, since they actually had the Urea/NOx neutralization system installed. They continue to be sold, since they are legally compliant.

Then the US EPA must be extremely incompetent, because their colleagues in several European countries all reached a very different conclusion, as did several NGOs. See for example this report.

Ditto over-the-road truck makers who use the same tech to keep freight trucks clean..... all passed EPA standards.

Trucks are clean these days (that is, if they haven been tampered with), but that wasn't always the case. All major truck makers in the US were fined US $1 billion twenty years ago for their emissions cheats, which were very similar to the ones widely employed in diesel cars.

well ....

[cascadingstylesheet]

It's one lever away from an amusement park ride

(Not really. But I couldn't resist.)

moving targets

[Comboman]

A model train doesn't have to contend with the little plastic people and cars moving across it's path. The Peoplemover also ran on a enclosed track without pedestrian or vehicle traffic to worry about. The most innovative thing about the Peoplemover was the moving sidewalk which allowed passengers to enter and exit without stopping the cars.

'respond to hazards faster than a human'

[Fly Swatter]

That's great but can it anticipate a hazard beforehand? I give an example of a dog that broke free from it's owner and is rumbling down a hill towards the road, will an autonomous vehicle see this and slow down or just go full speed ahead and only react once the dog is on the road in it's path and too late to stop in time?

Re:'respond to hazards faster than a human'

[110010001000]

The dirty secret is that the autonomous vehicle has a driver in it to react to situations like that. But some company made a bundle selling electronics on the taxpayer dime.

Re:'respond to hazards faster than a human'

[commodore64_love]

If you RTFA they give an example where a baby carriage is pushed in front of the train, and it stops. In another example two teens walk in front of the train, and it slows down just enough to let them pass, and then resumes normal speed.

Re:'respond to hazards faster than a human'

[Anonymous Coward]

Potsdam tram's smart mad stop.

Re:'respond to hazards faster than a human'

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you RTFC (read the fucking comment), they are asking if it is capable of anticipating an obstruction before it pulls directly in front of the train. In both of those examples, the train is not responding until the obstructions are directly in front of it.

Or maybe that was simply your rude way of saying "no, it cannot anticipate a hazard beforehand".

More autonomous progress

[110010001000]

First line: "“This is the type of situation I face every day,” said the tram driver, who has 25 years of experience under his belt, as he rang his bell."

Why do all these "autonomous" vehicles always have a driver or two? Amazing. I am sure it is right around the corner though. Tesla has a breakthrough AI chip which will fix it.

Re:More autonomous progress

[Oswald McWeany]

First line: "“This is the type of situation I face every day,” said the tram driver, who has 25 years of experience under his belt, as he rang his bell."

Why do all these "autonomous" vehicles always have a driver or two? Amazing. I am sure it is right around the corner though. Tesla has a breakthrough AI chip which will fix it.

Why? Because people don't trust them to run alone yet. Neither the public, nor the companies producing them. Autonomous works for 99% of things- but they haven't got that last 1% ironed out yet- once the do and only once they do there will be humans around. That last 1% is going to be the hardest 1% and the longest 1%.

Re:More autonomous progress

[Anonymous Coward]

>Why do all these "autonomous" vehicles always have a driver or two?
For someone to be in charge to alert authorities when one passenger decides to rob or rape another.

don't forget bitcoin

[gDLL]

..and said chip will run on bitcoins !!

Re:don't forget bitcoin

[sexconker]

Make an alt coin based on neural net / deep learning / AI bullshit. (NeuralCoin, DeepCoin, AICoin, etc. probably all already exist).

Lots of airports have this

[crgrace]

I'm not sure what the excitement is about, but lots of airports I've been to have Autonomous Trams. SFO in San Francisco, for example, has an autonomous tram that goes several miles from the BART station to all the terminals. I've also been in similar trams in Atlanta, Oakland, and I'm sure other places.

Re:Lots of airports have this

[Oswald McWeany]

I'm not sure what the excitement is about, but lots of airports I've been to have Autonomous Trams. SFO in San Francisco, for example, has an autonomous tram that goes several miles from the BART station to all the terminals. I've also been in similar trams in Atlanta, Oakland, and I'm sure other places.

The trains in Atlanta airport are anonymous. I don't recall seeing any autonomous trams in Atlanta. Not that I spend much time in downtown Atlanta, but I don't recall seeing ANY trams on the streets of Atlanta. Do they have them? Maybe I've just been to the wrong parts of Atlanta where streets are car only.

Re:Lots of airports have this

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure what the excitement is about, but lots of airports I've been to have Autonomous Trams. SFO in San Francisco, for example, has an autonomous tram that goes several miles from the BART station to all the terminals. I've also been in similar trams in Atlanta, Oakland, and I'm sure other places.

Do those operate on city streets when any random yahoo can jump in front of them and they need to react?

Re:Lots of airports have this

[Anonymous Coward]

Those are essentially light trains. This is an actual tram, that rides a track in traffic.

Re:Lots of airports have this

[Sique]

And all those airport people mover have pedestrian level crossings, traffic lights, heavy trucks doing U-turns on their tracks, obstacles lying around in their way, trees falling down in heavy weather, cars piling up on their tracks because they share the lane with them etc.pp. Do you know what happens if you drop something on the autonomous track in SFO or LAX? The whole system including all carts and stations shuts down until the obstacle is removed. Do you want that in a tram system serving a whole town?

Good luck getting this implemented large scale

[magarity]

Public employees' transportation unions have a lot of political clout. Even if you can get driverless light rail trains installed in a major city there would still be a "driver" required to sit in the control booth pulling a salary and racking up a pension.

Re:Good luck getting this implemented large scale

[havana9]

There are actually in service light rail veichels without drivers, like the VAL system, that was designe and put in operation in the '80s ol the line #14 of the MEtro Paris where the trains don't have a driver cabin, and the train are derived from a normal one with a driver cabin.
And we're in France where when people got angry head literally rolled
So it's not an union problem. Of yourese you need to have guard to control sthe stations, enginners to verifiy the correct operation, maintenance personnel, and so on.

PTC is as close as autonomous as you'll get

[Only Time Will Tell]

I'm skeptical that you'd ever be able to fully get away from having a locomotive engineer in the cab. PTC (positive train control) allows trains to have enforced speed limits and automatically kicks them in if the engineer doesn't respond in time. It also locks out sections of track occupied by another train to prevent collisions. But there are too many spots where cameras and lidar wouldn't pick up in time on idiot cars or environmental hazards blocking the tracks due to buildings, curves, and vegetation. You'd need a human to be able to access accidents (I can't imagine you'd ever have enough cameras to see 360 degrees around the whole train, and struck vehicles can be a quarter mile behind the locomotive once it stops) and aid passengers or strike victims until emergency services arrive. In rural areas, this could be some time, especially if the train strikes a downed tree or landslide away from road crossings.

Still waiting for autonomous concentration camp.

[Anonymous Coward]

Arbeit macht frei.

Surprisingly slow

[AbRASiON]

We have them here in Melbourne and I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been a much faster focus on trains, buses and trams for automation. Especially trams (I know some trains have no drivers, Singapore was very surprising / exciting / weird)

Trams though, share the road with stupid drivers, pedestrians, cyclists etc - none the less, they do have a standard track, obviously a fixed a to b running. Sometimes, rarely, the driver needs to exit the vehicle to manually move the track with a metal bar, unfortunately -but for the most part, this seems something which could've been done either long ago, or at least faster than cars.

As long as they don't name the train Blaine

[jennatalia]

Then we are OK...

Re:As long as they don't name the train Blaine

[Daralantan]

He's a pain.