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Self Driving Mass Transit?

 
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This is somewhat related to this topic https://coderanch.com/t/686001/driving-cars-nyc, but I think it merits it's own thread.

With all of talk about self driving cars there has been only very little mention about self driving mass transit (buses, street cars and subways).
I know mass transit systems do a good job of reducing the number of vehicles on the roadways and many systems are automated, however is still at least one operator for dozens of passengers.

There is also the case of many children which take school buses to and from school on a fairly regular bases.
I wonder how soon before the general public trusts automated school buses with kids.
I remember running to the bus every once in a while in the morning. Some times the bus driver would wait a minute or so if they saw me at the door running for the stop.
With an automated transit system I would have missed the school bus and miss a day of school.
 
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Pete Letkeman wrote:With an automated transit system I would have missed the school bus and miss a day of school.


Maybe with a sophisticated automated transit system the bus would know that you are coming and waiting for you.
 
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The rail transit system in Vancouver has been driverless since it started-up on 1986 and works well.  The rail lines are either elevated above the roadways or in tunnels below ground, so no issues with a train and a car/bicycle/pedestrian meeting-up on the road.

The only issues that I have heard of are occasional unruly riders which require the transit police to board a train to deal with them.
 
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One example has been running for a couple of years now in Switzerland: Self-driving shuttles premiere in Sion. Note the date of the article: June 2016.

(Admittedly the vehicle in question can carry 11 passengers so you might not want to describe it as "mass" transit...)
 
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NYC has two unmanned pieces of mass transit. The AirTrain to JFK airport and the L subway train. And Vegas I believe has something on the strip. A bus or shuttle I think.

Automated school buses are trickier. Because the driver is also the designated adult in case of an emergency. Maybe for older kids?
 
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Pete Letkeman wrote:With an automated transit system I would have missed the school bus and miss a day of school.



There's automated, and then there's driverless. You can have one without the other. For driverless mass transit, there's the things that Jeanne mentioned and then (dating back over 30 years now) Vancouver's SkyTrain system. There's a very long list of automated Metro systems here: List of automated urban metro subway systems. But note that (as far as I can see) all of those systems run on tracks. Automated transit of the bus/shuttle variety seems to be much less common.
 
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Paul Clapham wrote:. . . (Admittedly the vehicle in question can carry 11 passengers so you might not want to describe it as "mass" transit...)

No, but an eleven‑seater vehicle can constitute part of a mass transit system. I can imagine situations where maybe eight people want to travel in the same direction. Come to think of it, the last time I set foot on a bus, which I only did because it just happened to arrive as I walked past the stop, and I no longer have to pay for bus tickets, for the half‑mile I was on the bus, there were about eight people on it, so an eleven‑seater bus might have been a better and more economical vehicle to run.
 
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Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:NYC has two unmanned pieces of mass transit. The AirTrain to JFK airport . . .

I think most automated shuttle services are to be found at airports.

Because the driver is also the designated adult in case of an emergency. Maybe for older kids?

Teenagers can get up to even more mischief than little kids
 
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