Autonomous Vehicles
I'm sure you immediately thought I meant cars and got irritated I'm not talking about public transit. In fact, I want to talk about both! I see the writing on the wall, that we're probably going to end up with autonomous vehicles everywhere, like it or not. My thought is that we should probably work to steer their development and regulation to reduce the harms it could have.
Welcome back to Reinspired or Futurism, a solarpunk speculative gemlog that hopes for a better, more sustainable future.
Various companies are developing self-driving systems for automobiles. The most notable, and notorious, of these is Tesla. Their system is... getting there. Other companies like GM are getting involved as well, and while we see them developing the technology and vying to get it deployed, I anticipate they'll see some degree of success.
Autonomous vehicles are, at least on paper, less dangerous for those outside of a car than those with human drivers. With the right developments and safeguards, they absolutely could be: and to be honest, that's one of the two main advantages they have to me. (I'll come back to the other one.) Automated systems don't get distracted. And they're precise and calculated, taking everything into account and executing far more cleanly and far more quickly than any human driver could. These combined make a compelling safety case for autonomous automobiles.
The other main advantage, well mostly when and if "level 5" full self-driving is achieved, is that you don't even need a driver's seat. Hell, you might not even need a driver's license, especially if in exceptional circumstances it gets remote piloted.
"Hal," I can almost hear you asking, "why wouldn't you just use a train?"
I think we should.
But I also think we can find a place for AVs, mostly to replace the cars rural places (particularly in North America) will still have to use.
Inter-city rail, and towns, suburbs, and cities implementing quality public transit, should be fought for and could even be funded by taxes from AV owners (but maybe not AV owners in rural areas; let's not punish our farmers). They should be used to drastically reduce the demand for automobiles, and THEN let AVs fill in the gaps: rural areas, suburbs that haven't transitioned yet, and corner cases in cities.
HOWEVER.
AV technology could also be used to enhance public transit -- possibly eliminating or drastically reducing the need for, say, bus drivers (as much as we all love them).
Professional drivers are hard to come by, mostly because nobody can afford to pay them worth a crap and especially with school bus drivers, the hours and duties are inherently abysmal. (I guess I should come back to school buses too.) Not only that, but for normal public transit, it often has to cut off overnight or cut routes due to staffing issues. Fully automated public transit would be more reliable, more frequent, and 24/7.
Now, for guide-based transit options like trains and streetcars (or trolleys or trams or whatever you call them), most of the automation you need is already there, and the only automation that really needs to be added is respect for signals, respect for crossings, and respect for obstacles. I feel like that would be a lot cheaper to do than an automated car, right? Far less sensors to pay for and program.
Another consideration for these is fuel. I hear hydrogen is on the horizon, and if we ever see a successful BEV-hydrogen hybrid, we might start seeing hydrogen stations pop up. But there's a good chance the transition is just not worth the money and we end up stuck on battery-electric personal AVs. Maybe I'll write a full article about hydrogen power someday, once I learn more about it.
I feel reasonably certain that we're going to see fully-autonomous automobiles on the road in my lifetime. Economy permitting, we'll probably see them within 20 years. I'm not really sure what regulations we need on them yet, but I know the time is now to do it. (Or, well, "now" after the collapse of the empire, I guess.) And while we roll out all this tech, which is kinda cool if I'm being honest, we have to limit its impact, and build out livable cities with viable public transportation for AVs to complement.
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P.s. School buses
I published this fast, without remembering I said I'd come back and touch on school buses!
Well, Europe and southeast Asia largely don't need them because they have good public transit and walkable towns and cities. The yellow school bus is an American icon because many other places in the world don't have them. We should strive to make public transit here so good, and so safe, that entire districts can go without the yellow school buses.