My thought is that self-driving vehicles will very quickly become part of the national landscape - but in a limited application for the next several decades.
Unfortunately, the most likely application will hit the railroads right in their bread-and butter market - long-range transit. I could easily see our interstates become SDV zones outside of urban areas. As an example - one of my drivers picks up a two-drop load at my plant in the Atlanta area - part destined for a customer in St Louis, the rest for my West Coast distribution center in the Bay area. He/she secures the load, negotiates the complex Atlanta area traffic, fuels up at a self-service fueling center or a truck stop on the north side of town, then enters I-75 and accesses a SDV lane just north of town. They then rest while the satellite drives the truck for the next ten hours on exclusive - through-traffic lanes or whenever they reach approach St. Louis. They exit the SDV lane, exit the Interstate, and drive the customer's location After dropping the portion of the load at the customer's dock, repeat the prior cycle upon entering I-70 enroute to a supplier in the Denver area. Repeat the cycle in Denver, enter I -70, and allow the SDV function to pilot the truck to my distribution center in, say, Sacremento. Transportation companies will line up to fund the SDV lanes via a user fee =if= the ability to efficently use a single driver instead of a team operation will offset the addition fuel costs and the capital investment in additional tractors transiting rural areas. Less time-senstive freight wouldn't justify the added cost - but it would certainly skim off the high-profit intermodal segment (and drag a lot of less-time-sensetive freight with it on backhauls and "load fill". :(
RME Euclid Imagine getting run over by a smiling self-driving car. There's worse, you know.
Euclid Imagine getting run over by a smiling self-driving car.
There's worse, you know.
mudchicken You expect that manual to be understandable? Probably written by one of the fellow classmates of one of those "newsworkers" (ie - an otherwise unemployable english major that is completely unfamiliar with the vehicle or an automotive engineer geek who has never carried-on an intelligent conversation outside the sheltered hive in the real world.) Manual(s) may have some recycling value, but little else.
Both my manuals (an older ford and newer GM) are fine. Tech writers did them, probably - a very useful application of the English studies. Plus tons of sources online for anything missing. *shrugs*.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
dakotafred"Personal ... rather elitist" ... and, in the post above that, "idiosyncratic." I also stand accused of thinking I "own the roads." All because I question the camel we are being asked to swallow in radical changes proposed for the roads and public safety.
No. Not a personal attack. And not because of the "camel." It was entirely because of what you said:
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
The controversy over self-driving seldom stops over at C-D, and here's a link to the latest round; my own thoughts are summarized in Post #123.
http://www.city-data.com/forum/automotive/2649004-what-point-self-driving-cars.html
As noted therein, interest in simulation of railroad vehicle control and, by implication, to autonomous movement, dates back to the early Sixties, and I first learned aboiut (and dabbled in) it as a grad student. Nobody, execpt a couple of the dreamers behind the GM exhibit at the 1964 World's Fair, thought of extending it to highway operations -- way too many variables.
But it's the kind of idea that attracts the attention of people with lots of money to play with, and Larry Page and Serge Brin (Google) surely fit that profile.
I have to belive that there are any number of people closer to the actual discipline who would raise the question of the huge amounts of IT capacity necessary to address this issue, but people are prone to hear what they want to hear.
With regard to mr. Schllmm's comment:
I would not conclude that self-driving cars are already here. What is already here is an incredibly over-hyped nonsensical concept looking for a purpose. It seems to appeal particularly as a fashion statement to those people who are already so busy playing around with gadgets and hobbies that they can hardly keep their cars on the road.
If it were just a matter of those people buying their own self-driving car, I would not care at all. I am not worried about it threatening my safety. But I suspect we are all going to be pulled into this happy little fantasy whether we want to be or not.
Eddie SandI don't want somebody else making decisions for me -- especially when the "progressive" elite is trying to call the shots.
As I thought. Your objection to technology is ideological/psychological. Nobody is forcing you to buy a self-drive car, cell phone, hook into the internet, have a TV, get innoculations or any of the many advances in technology and medicine.
CatFoodFlambe My thought is that self-driving vehicles will very quickly become part of the national landscape - but in a limited application for the next several decades. Unfortunately, the most likely application will hit the railroads right in their bread-and butter market - long-range transit. I could easily see our interstates become SDV zones outside of urban areas. As an example - one of my drivers picks up a two-drop load at my plant in the Atlanta area - part destined for a customer in Louisville, the rest for my West Coast distribution center in the Bay area. He/she secures the load, negotiates the complex Atlanta area traffic, fuels up at a self-service fueling center or a truck stop on the north side of town, then enters I-75 and accesses a SDV lane just north of town. They then rest while the satellite drives the truck for the next ten hours on exclusive - through-traffic lanes or whenever they reach approach St. Louis. They exit the SDV lane, exit the Interstate, and drive the customer's location After dropping the portion of the load at the customer's dock, repeat the prior cycle upon entering I-70 enroute to a supplier in the Denver area. Repeat the cycle in Denver, enter I -70, and allow the SDV function to pilot the truck to my distribution center in, say, Sacremento. Transportation companies will line up to fund the SDV lanes via a user fee =if= the ability to efficently use a single driver instead of a team operation will offset the addition fuel costs and the capital investment in additional tractors transiting rural areas. Less time-senstive freight wouldn't justify the added cost - but it would certainly skim off the high-profit intermodal segment (and drag a lot of less-time-sensetive freight with it on backhauls and "load fill". :(
Unfortunately, the most likely application will hit the railroads right in their bread-and butter market - long-range transit. I could easily see our interstates become SDV zones outside of urban areas. As an example - one of my drivers picks up a two-drop load at my plant in the Atlanta area - part destined for a customer in Louisville, the rest for my West Coast distribution center in the Bay area. He/she secures the load, negotiates the complex Atlanta area traffic, fuels up at a self-service fueling center or a truck stop on the north side of town, then enters I-75 and accesses a SDV lane just north of town. They then rest while the satellite drives the truck for the next ten hours on exclusive - through-traffic lanes or whenever they reach approach St. Louis. They exit the SDV lane, exit the Interstate, and drive the customer's location After dropping the portion of the load at the customer's dock, repeat the prior cycle upon entering I-70 enroute to a supplier in the Denver area. Repeat the cycle in Denver, enter I -70, and allow the SDV function to pilot the truck to my distribution center in, say, Sacremento. Transportation companies will line up to fund the SDV lanes via a user fee =if= the ability to efficently use a single driver instead of a team operation will offset the addition fuel costs and the capital investment in additional tractors transiting rural areas. Less time-senstive freight wouldn't justify the added cost - but it would certainly skim off the high-profit intermodal segment (and drag a lot of less-time-sensetive freight with it on backhauls and "load fill". :(
I think that scenario is very likely to come about over the next couple of decades. Let the driver handle the complex task of handling the truck in traffic along with loading and unloading. A robot can steer it down the four lane. A new industry, servicing driverless vehicles on the highway, may emerge.
Obviously, we all have a right to criticize the self-driving car revolution because it is being promoted at the highest levels as a sweeping change that we all are being expected to participate in. Obviously the regulating community has fallen head over heels in love with this brave new world of motoring. The government already owns the roads, and when the cause is safety, accessibility, and saving the planet, there can be no choice in supporting it. You can see it now as proponents sneer at those who dare to question the goodness of the master plan.
Here is the President’s view edited down to key points:
By Barack Obama
Right now, too many people die on our roads – 35,200 last year alone – with 94 percent of those the result of human error or choice. Automated vehicles have the potential to save tens of thousands of lives each year. And right now, for too many senior citizens and Americans with disabilities, driving isn’t an option. Automated vehicles could change their lives.
Safer, more accessible driving. Less congested, less polluted roads.
But we have to get it right.
Americans deserve to know they’ll be safe today even as we develop and deploy the technologies of tomorrow.
That’s why my administration is rolling out new rules of the road for automated vehicles –
And we’re asking them to sign a 15-point safety checklist...
We’re also giving guidance to states on how to wisely regulate these new technologies, so that when a self-driving car crosses from Ohio into Pennsylvania, its passengers can be confident…
Regulation can go too far. Government sometimes gets it wrong when it comes to rapidly changing technologies. That’s why this new policy is flexible and designed to evolve with new advances.
There are always those who argue that government should stay out of free enterprise entirely, but I think most Americans would agree we still need rules to keep our air and water clean, and our food and medicine safe.
That’s the general principle here.
Both government and industry have a responsibility…
And make no mistake: If a self-driving car isn’t safe, we have the authority to pull it off the road. We won’t hesitate…
… we know that this technology, as with any new technology, has the potential to create new jobs and render other jobs obsolete. So it’s critical that we also provide new resources and job training to prepare every American for the good-paying jobs of tomorrow.
We’re determined to help the private sector get this technology right from the start.
Because technology… – it’s about making people’s lives better.
The progress we’ve seen in automated vehicles over the past several years shows what our country is capable of when our engineers and entrepreneurs, our scientists and our students – backed by federal and private investment – pour their best work and brightest ideas toward a big, bold goal. That’s the spirit that has propelled us forward since before the automobile was invented. Now it’s up to us to keep driving toward a better future for everyone.
This linked article has a wonderful video:
http://gizmodo.com/obama-muses-about-the-wonders-of-tech-in-op-ed-about-se-1786833198
I believe self driving trucks are inevitable and they will be a very significant problem for the railroads. These vehicles will greatly reduce the cost of moving freight by highway and the railroads will have to respond in kind or decline greatly in significance.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-self-driving-trucks-blue-collar-jobs-20160925-story.html
The railroads can use similar technology to reduce their own costs, and they must do so or become insignificant. Of course, railroading deals with organized labor and trucking doesn't. (For the most part.) So there will be organized opposition from rail labor. (As in the FRA's political pending decree against one person crews.)
Labor's Luddite response will be harmful to railroading, and to the people of this country. But, it's going to happen. No one can stop innovation/change. Trying to do so only makes things worse.
George Jetson still had to drive his own "car" and it could fly.
I agree that organized labor will be a big impediment to self-driving trains, and to a lesser extent to self-driving trucks, and be no impediment to self-driving cars. However, the technological hurdles with be far less with self-driving trains than with either self-driving cars or self-driving trucks. So I expect to see self-driving trains within a decade, and doubt either cars or trucks will be self-driving in the next 30 years, if ever.
Progress is indeed unstoppable, but so is marketing hype. And the tech world leads the way in overpromising the future because what it does produce is easily recognized as moving very fast. So dramatic predictions are taken seriously, and they shake the tree of investment and stir government policy. As a result, we have proposals like Hyperloop and self-driving cars.
The very nature of the self-driving car vision is to force the end of manually driven cars. How else are you going to solve the collective problems of traffic deaths, inaccessibility, highway congestion, and climate change without collective participation in solving those problems?
So the perfection and implementation of both self-driving cars and self-driving trucks requires a complete changeover of the entire highway/vehicle infrastructure and a vast expansion of government to run it. I cannot see self-driving trucks simply leading the way in a vacuum in a couple years as the public tinkers with self-driving cars and the roads stay as they are. Whatever safety issues are perceived, they will be at the very maximum with self-driving trucks sharing the road with manually driven cars.
What ever happened to those personal flying cars that we were going to all have in our garages by the mid-1960s? What about those humanoid robots that were going to be doing all the house chores? Those would be a walk in the park compared to self-driving cars.
greyhounds I believe self driving trucks are inevitable and they will be a very significant problem for the railroads. These vehicles will greatly reduce the cost of moving freight by highway and the railroads will have to respond in kind or decline greatly in significance. http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-self-driving-trucks-blue-collar-jobs-20160925-story.html The railroads can use similar technology to reduce their own costs, and they must do so or become insignificant. Of course, railroading deals with organized labor and trucking doesn't. (For the most part.) So there will be organized opposition from rail labor. (As in the FRA's political pending decree against one person crews.) Labor's Luddite response will be harmful to railroading, and to the people of this country. But, it's going to happen. No one can stop innovation/change. Trying to do so only makes things worse.
Hey Zug, I guess we're supposed to be happy and accepting about losing our livelihoods. It's for the good of the country don't you know.
Jeff
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jeffhergertHey Zug, I guess we're supposed to be happy and accepting about losing our livelihoods. It's for the good of the country don't you know.
No, you're not supposed to be happy. No more than my father was when he was run off his 160 acre farm due to the mechanization of agriculture.
That happened the year I was born. So I grew up in a small town and not on a farm. He never did get over not being a farmer.
But things change. This can all be worked out by good faith negotiations. No one now employed need loose their job. But only hire to the new levels required. The change will not be overnight.
Trucking is going to be much more labor efficient. So are the inland waterway carriers. The railroads are going to have to remain competitive or decline in to insignificance.
Work it out so that no one now working suffers. That's doable.
Some recalibration is essential. Name the automated railroads that have dispensed with engineers/drivers. I do not know of any. All, as far as I know, transit systems, captive single-commodity freight carriers, all keep an engineer, who is supposed to regularly drive manually to keep his skills up, to take over in emergency.
What makes you think that private automobiles, trucks, and buses will not have the same requirements?
We're talking about a lot of threatened jobs here:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-driverless-cars-kill-jobs-20160926-story.html
This is a factor that Elon Musk and the other technophiles tend to overlook.
CSSHEGEWISCH We're talking about a lot of threatened jobs here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-driverless-cars-kill-jobs-20160926-story.html This is a factor that Elon Musk and the other technophiles tend to overlook.
As do many of us when it costs less.
Maybe in the future work will be optional. We get our guaranteed income whether we work or not. You only work when and if you want to. No more slogging off to the paint factory to pay down your outsized mortgage. We nolonger define ourselves by the work we do but rather by our interests and the activities we enjoy. Would that be so terrible?
Ulrich Maybe in the future work will be optional. We get our guaranteed income whether we work or not. You only work when and if you want to. No more slogging off to the paint factory to pay down your outsized mortgage. We nolonger define ourselves by the work we do but rather by our interests and the activities we enjoy. Would that be so terrible?
If we don't work, by what means will we obtain a guaranteed income?
Euclid Ulrich Maybe in the future work will be optional. We get our guaranteed income whether we work or not. You only work when and if you want to. No more slogging off to the paint factory to pay down your outsized mortgage. We nolonger define ourselves by the work we do but rather by our interests and the activities we enjoy. Would that be so terrible? If we don't work, by what means will we obtain a guaranteed income?
Through the productivity of our society as a whole. It may become possible to share in the fruits of that productivity without contributing much or anything to it. We're already far more productive (as a society) than we need to be. Maybe there will nolonger be a need for all of us to work as the visionaries do the thinking and the robots do the heavy lifting and repetitive tasks so the rest of us can enjoy a life of leisure and pursuit of personal interests.
Ulrich Euclid Ulrich Maybe in the future work will be optional. We get our guaranteed income whether we work or not. You only work when and if you want to. No more slogging off to the paint factory to pay down your outsized mortgage. We nolonger define ourselves by the work we do but rather by our interests and the activities we enjoy. Would that be so terrible? If we don't work, by what means will we obtain a guaranteed income? Through the productivity of our society as a whole. It may become possible to share in the fruits of that productivity without contributing much or anything to it. We're already far more productive (as a society) than we need to be. Maybe there will nolonger be a need for all of us to work as the visionaries do the thinking and the robots do the heavy lifting and repetitive tasks so the rest of us can enjoy a life of leisure and pursuit of personal interests.
That does not sound like the society that I know. If you offer a free ride, most everybody will take it. I doubt the people who don’t will want to work their lives away supporting everybody else.
The motive for working hard is to own the fruits of your labor. Utopianism ideology removes that motive because it requires sharing the fruits of your labor with those who want a free ride. The result is poverty for everybody except for those geniuses at the top who sold everyone on the joy of a free lunch.
Most of us today are already riding on the coat tails of others.. Galileo, Newton, Preistley, Curie, etc etc.. All of us even today have benefitted enormously from their existence, and they haven't objected. Add in more of them to come and the benefits of robots to increase productivity yet further. Why must each of us be productive when that nolonger becomes necessary? In the past it was necessary for everyone to be productive.. so kids as young as six years old were sent into the fields and into the mines. and then, thanks largely to advances in science and technology, it nolonger became necessary for little kids to work. Extrapolate into the future.. it may nolonger be necessary for most of us to work. The great minds and robots will offer enough productivity to carry the rest of us.
I volunteer to sit back and enjoy the fruits of YOUR work...
Get busy! I want more!
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
Never mind me... you're enjoying the benefits of great minds every day without paying for it or probably even realizing it. Now, I'm sorry, if you need some *** moved from point a to point b (what I do) you'll need to pay for it.
Ulrich Most of us today are already riding on the coat tails of others.. Galileo, Newton, Preistley, Curie, etc etc.. All of us even today have benefitted enormously from their existence, and they haven't objected. Add in more of them to come and the benefits of robots to increase productivity yet further. Why must each of us be productive when that nolonger becomes necessary? In the past it was necessary for everyone to be productive.. so kids as young as six years old were sent into the fields and into the mines. and then, thanks largely to advances in science and technology, it nolonger became necessary for little kids to work. Extrapolate into the future.. it may nolonger be necessary for most of us to work. The great minds and robots will offer enough productivity to carry the rest of us.
I see nothing wrong with people having the choice to be non-productive if they decide that being productive is not necessary.
But I don’t believe their choice should include the option to be non-productive by taking the productivity of others who choose to be productive; or supporting a government that takes from the productive to give to those who would rather not be productive themselves.
To the extent that you increase the burden of the productive in this way, you get less productivity out of them. That is human nature. And to the extent that you offer a free lunch to those who would be productive without it, you also get less productivity out of them. That too is human nature. So with these two principles working together, you get the smallest total pie out of that type of regulated economic system.
It is true that everybody gets the same size slice, but it is a very tiny slice. Not only is the pie really small, but the privileged few who run the show and make the rules take at least half the pie for themselves to start with. That is why they work so hard to sell the people on the beauty of a free lunch to start with.
It's already here. We're not all equally productive now. The most productive members of society carry a disproportionate share of the productive burden. That's just the way it is and always has been. Compare the inventor of refrigeration with the guy who works on the assembly line putting together refrigerators.. are they equally productive? Of course not.
Ulrich It's already here. We're not all equally productive now. The most productive members of society carry a disproportionate share of the productive burden. That's just the way it is and always has been. Compare the inventor of refrigeration with the guy who works on the assembly line putting together refrigerators.. are they equally productive? Of course not.
I am not calling for equal productivity. I am calling for compensation based on your productivity. The guy who invented the refrigerator received just compensation, and it was far more than the guy putting the product togther on the assembly line. They both got what they deserved, and the rest of us following them benefit from their contribution equally. The productive ones are not carrying a disproportionate share of the productive burden, as you say. I think that is a deeply flawed way of looking at it. They are producing more than others, but they are being compensated more too.
You seem to be saying that the productive ones who object to giving part of their productivity to those who want the free lunch are hypocrites because they too are getting a free lunch from those achievers who preceded them. It sounds like the "You didn't build that" argument that you hear from today's socialists. When you go down that road there are endless reasons why what you produce is not really all yours. Regardless of how you slice that sort of entitlement issue, people won't produce without motivation. And there is no limit to what people will want if they don't have to pay for it.
Compensated more but often not nearly in proportion to productivity. Look at Tesla (the man not the company). He died an impoverished broken old man. R Diesel also died impoverished, his engine considered a useless curiousity during his lifetime. Newton and Einstein.. not much wealth there either. Stephen Hawking is certainly not as wealthy as the CEO of Proctor and Gamble.
Ulrich Compensated more but often not nearly in proportion to productivity. Look at Tesla (the man not the company). He died an impoverished broken old man. R Diesel also died impoverished, his engine considered a useless curiousity during his lifetime. Newton and Einstein.. not much wealth there either. Stephen Hawking is certainly not as wealthy as the CEO of Proctor and Gamble.
If the productive achievers are not compensated fairly, who is going to decide what is fair? Generally the ones who produce decide what is fair because they would not produce if they thought the compensation was not worth it. So they make their own bargain based on their free will. Usually, the ones who complain about lack of fairness are the those producing the least.
So if the market cannot be relied on for fair compensation, who will decide and what will be their criteria?
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