Truthiness said :

A fleet of driverless taxis would be a great fit for Canberra, all the comfort, speed and convenience of taxis, for a fraction of the price.

Yup, taxis really are the ideal place for driver-less vehicles to enter the market place. If no one is using the vehicle, then you aren’t wasting money paying a driver doing nothing.

I wonder what the unions think of the idea?

Truthiness said :

Driverless cars are not fiction, Google has been running them on actual roads for hundreds of thousands of kilometers. We could roll a fleet out in under a decade.

The reason driverless cars are such a good public transport system is that they essentially function as super cheap taxis. Instead of every person needing their own car, which spends 90% of its time in parking, you just book a car when you need it.

It means you don’t have busses running empty routes wasting petrol and driver time, you don’t have to sit with strangers and you can go direct from A to B. It also uses existing infrastructure unlike light rail.

A fleet of driverless taxis would be a great fit for Canberra, all the comfort, speed and convenience of taxis, for a fraction of the price.

I’m pretty sure people will still want their own driverless car. Communism never really took off here.

anything helping getting to and from the pub cheaply, easily, and in comfort might well catch on with the australian public.

johnboy said :

anything helping getting to and from the pub cheaply, easily, and in comfort might well catch on with the australian public.

I think the real plus will be being able to sit in the car with a beer in your lap ON THE WAY to the pub… But I imagine the government will probably still want people operating driverless vehicles to be sober, at least initially.

Don’t be so sure.

Governments will see HUGE savings from driverless vehicles once the meatbags stop smashing into each other and needing emergency care and long term disability support.

Also remember that the people working in government like a drink with dinner too and hate arguing over who’s turn it is to drive.

That and the car industry will be mad keen to obsolete the existing fleets.

johnboy said :

Governments will see HUGE savings from driverless vehicles once the meatbags stop smashing into each other and needing emergency care and long term disability support.

Cars built to be entirely driver-less wouldn’t need any of those inconvenient steering wheels, gear changers or peddles either, enabling a much safer cabin space and better air bag placements for when a meatbag operated vehicle hits you.

johnboy said :

Don’t be so sure.

Governments will see HUGE savings from driverless vehicles once the meatbags stop smashing into each other and needing emergency care and long term disability support.

Also remember that the people working in government like a drink with dinner too and hate arguing over who’s turn it is to drive.

That and the car industry will be mad keen to obsolete the existing fleets.

Here’s hoping JB, I’ll drink to that

thy_dungeonman said :

KB1971 said :

I am actually surprised to see that cyclists are mentioned, I was expecting to be treated as the antichrist.

I like some of the stuff but it is all really small picture stuff in the sense of a community. Not likely to capture many votes.

I wonder who their preferences go to?

“The Motorist Party will support cost effective and sustainable cycling initiatives, which can demonstrate proven benefits to the majority of the ACT community”

Red between the lines here:
The motorist party won’t support cycling because it costs a lot and and we hate having to keep spending money on cycle paths that need repairing a lot less often than roads. We will spend money on cycle lanes maybe because they are on the road and we will only spend money on the road. We have enough cycle paths anyway they are not even full of bikes yet, Canberra is too sparse and not flat enough, quality infrastructure is pointless, get in a car.

No need to read between the lines, just read the full policy statement – their actual policy on cyclists is (paraphrasing): “roads are for cars, cyclists get off the road onto the shared paths that we won’t fund.”

OpenYourMind said :

Apologies for talking about self driving cars again, but it’s amusing that self driving, coupled with vehicle to vehicle communications will negate the majority of those policies in one way or another.

Recently IEEE chimed in with a prediction of self driving cars making up 75% of all cars by 2040.
http://editorial.autos.msn.com/blogs/autosblogpost.aspx?post=fd1dd24a-7eea-4a00-8a97-dd7c3aab7a1c

Only acceptable if they can be set to “Hoon” mode after 11 at night. Don’t think I could sleep without the dulcet tones of circlework being performed nearby.

Of course, the driverless cars would have to be fuelled by alcohol…

…though perhaps more telling than the statement itself is the fact that they have a policy on ‘cyclists,’ not ‘cycling’.

johnboy said :

anything helping getting to and from the pub cheaply, easily, and in comfort might well catch on with the australian public.

All the Australian public needs is a tolerant husband. This is a method that meets all those criteria.

Either that or wobbling slowly home on the bike-paths, where the Australian public is only going to hurt itself.

But I suppose the unpartnered, the married-to-one-who-is-also-drinking, or far-flung, might find this difficult. I just find the idea of not being in control of the vehicle (or the driver) quite frightening. Then again, I trust to technology that’s in control all the time: lifts for example. So I suppose I could get used to it.

thy_dungeonman said :

OpenYourMind said :

Apologies for talking about self driving cars again, but it’s amusing that self driving, coupled with vehicle to vehicle communications will negate the majority of those policies in one way or another.

Recently IEEE chimed in with a prediction of self driving cars making up 75% of all cars by 2040.
http://editorial.autos.msn.com/blogs/autosblogpost.aspx?post=fd1dd24a-7eea-4a00-8a97-dd7c3aab7a1c

Why does everyone keep banging on about self driving cars as some magic solution? Just because a car drives itself doesn’t mean it takes up any less space on the road. Besides a prediction is still a long way off from actual cars on the road, none of which are yet present, and it will still take a while for them to become commonly used and available. Even 2040 is still a long way especially for local governments to plan.

I remember having the same kinds of discussions almost two decades ago when I was banging on about the internet and what it could mean for all of us.

While 2040 sounds a long way off, in planning terms for very large scale projects, it’s not. The 2040 prediction is for 75% saturation, however once driverless cars are available, the speed of change will increase dramatically because the benefits to society are so great. Here’s some of the potential change points:
- Almost no accidents. That alone will be compelling for Governments.
- No requirement for big car parks
- Less traffic control measures. Cars talk to each other (USA is looking to make V2V communications mandatory).
- Less traffic – the main reason for traffic jams is people are crap at driving
- Freedom for disabled and the elderly who can no longer drive
- Removing the public transport costs
- Reducing the costs of transporting goods
- Reducing fuel/electricity usage as cars can be made lighter and in unconventional ways
- Car ownership – many people simply won’t need to own a car any more. They can summon a car (probably by smartphone) for the job at hand – station wagon, ute, single occupant vehicle or whatever.
- Garaging and driveways. Many houses may no longer need a garage and driveway.

If you can’t see how driverless cars aren’t going to change so many facets of how we live, you need a little more imagination.

As for your comment that a driverless car takes up just as much space on the road, the reason this is incorrect has been demonstrated by Volvo driverless tech where cars link together in a close convoy.

DrKoresh said :

johnboy said :

anything helping getting to and from the pub cheaply, easily, and in comfort might well catch on with the australian public.

I think the real plus will be being able to sit in the car with a beer in your lap ON THE WAY to the pub… But I imagine the government will probably still want people operating driverless vehicles to be sober, at least initially.

Now that is a policy I can wholeheartedly support.

http://www.tested.com/news/44337-how-i-envision-the-future-of-the-autonomous-car/

OpenYourMind said :

As for your comment that a driverless car takes up just as much space on the road, the reason this is incorrect has been demonstrated by Volvo driverless tech where cars link together in a close convoy.

I hope the person programming that software does a good job when planning for a f%#&off big jumping under the wheels of the first in the convoy. But I guess vehicle to vehicle comms mean that all the cars stomp the brakes at the same time rather then the old dude at the back not knowing until he sees the brake lights on the car in front.

p1 said :

OpenYourMind said :

As for your comment that a driverless car takes up just as much space on the road, the reason this is incorrect has been demonstrated by Volvo driverless tech where cars link together in a close convoy.

I hope the person programming that software does a good job when planning for a f%#&off big jumping under the wheels of the first in the convoy. But I guess vehicle to vehicle comms mean that all the cars stomp the brakes at the same time rather then the old dude at the back not knowing until he sees the brake lights on the car in front.

Your car is already running a bunch of code. If your car is relatively new it’s probably making decisions on which corner to apply brakes (stability control), when to deploy an airbag, when to apply the brakes in an emergency (brake assist), throttle positions, traction control etc.

Get us a SIVS