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Driverless cars could revolutionise transport and lead to the decline of Railways

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Bald Rick

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Who would own them if they are basically taxi pods?. Who is responsible for insuring them? What happens if one skids on a wet road and hits my car? Assuming I still own a car when these are being introduced...

Same as care hire / taxi firms.
 

Islineclear3_1

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Same as care hire / taxi firms.
But as there is no driver, presume the cost of insurance will be factored into the hire charge. Then you could add on road tax, fuel (electric) duty, cost per mile which could then add up to be prohibitively expensive for particularly, short journeys.

Then as these pods won't be able to break the speed limit or attract parking fines, there's a lot of revenue to be lost...
 

bspahh

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An intermediate stage would be to have a driver who works remotely. The technology works for military drones. It can default to an autonomous mode if it loses network access, and perhaps avoid that location if its a permanent blackspot for internet access.

For a taxi service, you can then avoid the cost of paying for a driver to hang around waiting for passengers to turn up. If the taxi ends up in the suburbs, it can park there, and the driver can switch to a different journey. If the taxi needs to park in a city centre, they can park automatically in a car park, which could be done at much higher density if you don't need to open the doors to get inside, and if they are parked closely in line.

Taxi driving would then become something like working in a call centre, and might get off-shored to save more.
 

Bletchleyite

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An intermediate stage would be to have a driver who works remotely. The technology works for military drones. It can default to an autonomous mode if it loses network access, and perhaps avoid that location if its a permanent blackspot for internet access.

For a taxi service, you can then avoid the cost of paying for a driver to hang around waiting for passengers to turn up. If the taxi ends up in the suburbs, it can park there, and the driver can switch to a different journey. If the taxi needs to park in a city centre, they can park automatically in a car park, which could be done at much higher density if you don't need to open the doors to get inside, and if they are parked closely in line.

Taxi driving would then become something like working in a call centre, and might get off-shored to save more.

The delivery robots in MK work like that. Mostly automatic but if they get stuck a person takes over, either remotely or going to it in a van.
 

Bald Rick

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But as there is no driver, presume the cost of insurance will be factored into the hire charge. Then you could add on road tax, fuel (electric) duty, cost per mile which could then add up to be prohibitively expensive for particularly, short journeys.

Then as these pods won't be able to break the speed limit or attract parking fines, there's a lot of revenue to be lost...

The cost of all those things is in the cost of taxis today, plus the cost of the driver (which is the biggest cost), and they seem to be perfectly affordable for many.
 

The Ham

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The cost of all those things is in the cost of taxis today, plus the cost of the driver (which is the biggest cost), and they seem to be perfectly affordable for many.

Although, even if you were able to halve the cost "taxis" would still be quite a bit more expensive than most public transport options (locally I could go about twice as far by bus for about half the cost compared to getting a taxi, that's not even using a season ticket).

Which is another reason why automated cars/pods with just one booking (so an individual, family, friends sharing) may struggle to compete with public transport (and almost certainly wouldn't kill it off), as the cost is still likely to be more.

That's not too say that people wouldn't use it. For instance a family of 5 would likely be cheaper than the train and door to door, however those sorts of trips are the minority of travel that people make.
 

PeterC

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Who would own them if they are basically taxi pods?. Who is responsible for insuring them? What happens if one skids on a wet road and hits my car? Assuming I still own a car when these are being introduced...
The finance and ownership structure will be different to existing taxi and car hire operations. The change in technology and capital outlay will dictate that.

For a long journey vehicles will still need to return to a fuelling point that the operator owns or has an agreement with. This will inhibit the availability of pods for door to door journeys.

One thought about family trips. Once the destination is set how do you tell the pod that little Johnny needs a loo stop NOW!
 
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Bald Rick

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One thought about family trips. Once the destination is set how do you tell the pod that little Johnny needs a loo stop NOW!

Presumably by pushing the relevant button on the control panel. Rumours that it replies with a meassaging stating “YOU SHOULD’VE GONE BEFORE WE LEFT!” are as yet unconfirmed.
 

plarailfan

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I don't think there will be enough resources in the ground beneath our feet, to carry on making endless numbers of battery powered, computerized / autonomous cars !
I personally believe, that electric trolleybuses or trams will have to make a come back, to move us all around our work commitments and leisure activities, much like it was in the 1940's for example.
Home computers and gadgets, 'phones and other technology will absorb a lot of recycled and reclaimed material with car production, probably vying for scarce supplies of cobalt and lithium for example.
The world population explosion during recent decades, will even go on to create food and water shortages in years to come. I think politicians here in the UK have realised some of the potential future problems, to some extent, hence biting the bullet with the HS2 initiative and Trans-Pennine route upgrade, etc.
 

PeterC

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I don't think that taxi style autonomous vehicles will work for more than local journeys. A thousand suddenly turning up at Blackpool or Brighton today all needing a recharge before the customers return home tonight?
 

ExRes

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I don't think that taxi style autonomous vehicles will work for more than local journeys. A thousand suddenly turning up at Blackpool or Brighton today all needing a recharge before the customers return home tonight?

What a silly billy you are, surely the party line has made it quite clear that there will always be enough chargers available wherever they're needed, whenever they're needed
 

simonw

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I don't think that taxi style autonomous vehicles will work for more than local journeys. A thousand suddenly turning up at Blackpool or Brighton today all needing a recharge before the customers return home tonight?
Was there a shortage of Petrol for all the petrol cars that turned up today?

it's a good job forums like this didn't exist at the time when internal combustion engines were taking off, I can just imagine the doomsayers in action staying that there would never be enough petrol stations around.
 

mmh

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Although, even if you were able to halve the cost "taxis" would still be quite a bit more expensive than most public transport options (locally I could go about twice as far by bus for about half the cost compared to getting a taxi, that's not even using a season ticket).

In my experience that's rarely true outside large cities once there are two or more of you. For example, a simple return trip into town by bus for me would cost 5.70, while a taxi would be about 6 pounds each way. Of course on longer distances the bus wins. It's the same with train fares, if there are four people travelling it's quite likely the petrol to drive it will be less than the cost of the train.
 

Ediswan

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it's a good job forums like this didn't exist at the time when internal combustion engines were taking off, I can just imagine the doomsayers in action staying that there would never be enough petrol stations around.
There was a forum for doomsayers, The Times.
 

PeterC

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Was there a shortage of Petrol for all the petrol cars that turned up today?

it's a good job forums like this didn't exist at the time when internal combustion engines were taking off, I can just imagine the doomsayers in action staying that there would never be enough petrol stations around.
I can't work out if you have totally missed the point or are just trolling.

If autonomous vehicles are ito be individually owned then charging would be dispersed and there would be no problem. The issue is taxi style operation where you could get a peak of demand at a single depot.
 

simonw

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I can't work out if you have totally missed the point or are just trolling.

If autonomous vehicles are ito be individually owned then charging would be dispersed and there would be no problem. The issue is taxi style operation where you could get a peak of demand at a single depot.
My point is the market will evolve as it always had and is likely to carry on doing.
 

Ediswan

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it's a good job forums like this didn't exist at the time when internal combustion engines were taking off, I can just imagine the doomsayers in action staying that there would never be enough petrol stations around.
(Second response)

When the 'horseless carriage' arrived, one of its benefits was that you did not need the equivalennt of stables at your destination. Petrol came in cans. Take as many cans as you need for your trip. Long trips would be a gamble. The vehicles were not very reliable.

Get out and get under
 

Bald Rick

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I don't think that taxi style autonomous vehicles will work for more than local journeys. A thousand suddenly turning up at Blackpool or Brighton today all needing a recharge before the customers return home tonight?

Why would they all need a recharge? Most of them would be off on other jobs.
 

mmh

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How will these driverless taxis plug themselves in to charge?
 

Bletchleyite

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I don't think that taxi style autonomous vehicles will work for more than local journeys. A thousand suddenly turning up at Blackpool or Brighton today all needing a recharge before the customers return home tonight?

Given that they can move by themselves and a full charge takes a couple of hours, that is less of an issue than manually driven EVs.

How will these driverless taxis plug themselves in to charge?

Induction, probably, as used on the MK electric bus trial.
 

Bald Rick

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How will these driverless taxis plug themselves in to charge?

Induction, probably, as used on the MK electric bus trial.

Or in a imilar way the Heathrow pods do.

Or by having someone at a docking station who is plugging them all in and out. Hardly difficult in a world where every major supermarket employs a few people to collect trolleys.
 

The Ham

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In my experience that's rarely true outside large cities once there are two or more of you. For example, a simple return trip into town by bus for me would cost 5.70, while a taxi would be about 6 pounds each way. Of course on longer distances the bus wins. It's the same with train fares, if there are four people travelling it's quite likely the petrol to drive it will be less than the cost of the train.

Agreed that bus fares vary depending on where you are, however my example is in a rural area (defined as being a settlement with less than 10,000 population) where a day pass on the buses is much higher as it could be used to travel significant distances (as opposed to an urban area only pass which has a clearly defined coverage).

There's a fundamental flaw in the last statement, you are comparing only part of the costs of the car. In a future where you don't own a car it would be the true per miles costs of owning the car that you'd be charged (although less than owning it yourself as owning a car yourself involves a lot of time with the car not doing anything worthwhile).

If you look at the depreciation of cars more of it is on the age of the vehicle than the number of miles (a lease car will cost you an extra 10p/mile, or less, if you did 12,000 miles a year that would cost you an extra £100/month, yet there's few leases which are that low in cost and if they are they are for 6,000 miles in a year).

With electric vehicles it's the charging which is the issue for high use cars, however if your doing 100,000 miles a year and needing a new battery at £6,000 that's 6p a mile, if you then scrap the car after 5 years (let's say it cost £120,000) that's 24p a mile plus 10p/mile for other costs (tyres, profits, insurance, etc.). That's going to be just cheaper than company milage allowances, but still loads more than most public transport.

Even if the cost of the cars come down/they last longer, getting it to much less than 30p/mile would be hard work.

That would put London Birmingham return at about £70. A figure which might mean peak hour services may have to reduce their costs a little, but certainly wouldn't worry most TOC's.
 

Bletchleyite

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Once again, the "full cost of a car" model is an absolute fallacy and should be disregarded. Hardly anybody models their car use like that. They consider the fixed or occasional costs as a membership, effectively, and only consider fuel when making a journey.

It makes no difference if they technically should do this - simply that they do. And it will not change.

Until public transport accepts that and competes, using things like Railcards, it is always going to be onto a loser.

The bus industry mostly "gets it", with excellent value unlimited travel season tickets which cover the area that a "runabout" car would mostly be used in, allowing unlimited journeys.
 

edwin_m

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Once again, the "full cost of a car" model is an absolute fallacy and should be disregarded. Hardly anybody models their car use like that. They consider the fixed or occasional costs as a membership, effectively, and only consider fuel when making a journey.

It makes no difference if they technically should do this - simply that they do. And it will not change.

Until public transport accepts that and competes, using things like Railcards, it is always going to be onto a loser.

The bus industry mostly "gets it", with excellent value unlimited travel season tickets which cover the area that a "runabout" car would mostly be used in, allowing unlimited journeys.
As pointed out in the previous post, if you move to a shared mobility model then the charge for each journey must include a share of the fixed(ish) cost of the vehicle. It's much lower than a journey would cost in an owned vehicle, because a shared vehicle makes a lot more journeys, but as you say nobody really thinks about the fixed cost of an owned vehicle.
 

Bletchleyite

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As pointed out in the previous post, if you move to a shared mobility model then the charge for each journey must include a share of the fixed(ish) cost of the vehicle. It's much lower than a journey would cost in an owned vehicle, because a shared vehicle makes a lot more journeys, but as you say nobody really thinks about the fixed cost of an owned vehicle.

Of course, for the reason I pointed out, a shared model will not work if it doesn't include a "lump sum for membership then marginal cost" usage model for heavy users.
 

edwin_m

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Of course, for the reason I pointed out, a shared model will not work if it doesn't include a "lump sum for membership then marginal cost" usage model for heavy users.
That would be a bad idea in transport and environment terms, exactly because it makes car use cheaper on a marginal basis once someone has paid out the lump sum. The rational choice to do so is exacerbated by the emotional "I've paid out all this money for this service, might as well make the most of it" factor.

Therefore, ideally, these schemes should keep any membership fee to a minimal level to pay for the admin of having a particular person in the scheme, and load all the costs onto useage. I recognise that a commercial provider may not see it that way.
 
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