TRONto
Active Member
Guessing this model is a few years old - Battery powered streetcar!
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The Coming Disruption of Transport
- Thread starter kEiThZ
- Start date
Guessing this model is a few years old - Battery powered streetcar!
EastYorkTTCFan
Senior Member
There not really good except for if you want to have a section without wires as it still needs to have charging infrastructure or be on wires.
TRONto
Active Member
Very true. I thought it was cool although not needed in Toronto.
I'm sure someone at some point on this forum has said you can't put a battery on a streetcar
EastYorkTTCFan
Senior Member
It's been brought up in threads about the streetcar network and the one about the current fleet as well.
TRONto
Active Member
World's second largest mining corporation orders four Wabtec battery-electric locomotives
Wabtec announced that mining company Rio Tinto placed an order for four of its FLXdrive battery-electric locomotives to reduce its emissions.
electrek.co
Another prototype - up to 350 miles. (Cross-posted to General Railway and Go Transit Electrification)
TRONto
Active Member
City cancels order of 50 hydrogen buses after realizing electric buses make so much more sense
The City of Montpellier confirmed that it canceled an order for 50 hydrogen fuel cell buses after realizing that it would be cheaper and more efficient to order battery-electric buses instead. Hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars are pretty much dead already. Virtually every vehicle program from...
electrek.co
afransen
Senior Member
Tesla is indicating their intent to begin volume production of a dedicate robotaxi in 2024. I would not be surprised to see timelines slip a bit, but to me this indicates growing confidence in the technology being widely deployable.
www.notateslaapp.com
I don't blame naysayers for their skepticism, but to completely discount the impact of autonomy in long term transportation planning, as well as electrification, seems completely irresponsible. It is really just a matter of time before this nut is cracked--the market opportunity is just too vast for it not to be the target of vast amounts of investment.
If we're planning subways, etc. for delivery in 2035 or 2040, those should plan for at least 80% probability of autonomous vehicles becoming widely deployed. The entire bus model will be up-ended, and become much more compelling in terms of speed and convenience. I see a bigger role for longer distance, higher average speed rail service to act as a backbone. If rail average speed is too low, it will encourage more trips to go entirely by shared robotaxi and add to road congestion.
Tesla Q1 Earnings: Robotaxi in 2024, Cybertruck in 2023, Record profit
Tesla just reported first-quarter results for 2022 and beat analysts’ expectations on the top and bottom lines. Despite factory shutdowns, inflationary pressu
www.notateslaapp.com
I don't blame naysayers for their skepticism, but to completely discount the impact of autonomy in long term transportation planning, as well as electrification, seems completely irresponsible. It is really just a matter of time before this nut is cracked--the market opportunity is just too vast for it not to be the target of vast amounts of investment.
If we're planning subways, etc. for delivery in 2035 or 2040, those should plan for at least 80% probability of autonomous vehicles becoming widely deployed. The entire bus model will be up-ended, and become much more compelling in terms of speed and convenience. I see a bigger role for longer distance, higher average speed rail service to act as a backbone. If rail average speed is too low, it will encourage more trips to go entirely by shared robotaxi and add to road congestion.
desperateAmbassador
New Member
Private autonomous cars/taxis (as Elon and Silicon Valley types see it) won't solve congestion because removing the driver doesn't solve the geometry problem. Just look to the Vegas hyper loop for evidence of that.Tesla is indicating their intent to begin volume production of a dedicate robotaxi in 2024. I would not be surprised to see timelines slip a bit, but to me this indicates growing confidence in the technology being widely deployable.
Tesla Q1 Earnings: Robotaxi in 2024, Cybertruck in 2023, Record profit
Tesla just reported first-quarter results for 2022 and beat analysts’ expectations on the top and bottom lines. Despite factory shutdowns, inflationary pressu
I don't blame naysayers for their skepticism, but to completely discount the impact of autonomy in long term transportation planning, as well as electrification, seems completely irresponsible. It is really just a matter of time before this nut is cracked--the market opportunity is just too vast for it not to be the target of vast amounts of investment.
If we're planning subways, etc. for delivery in 2035 or 2040, those should plan for at least 80% probability of autonomous vehicles becoming widely deployed. The entire bus model will be up-ended, and become much more compelling in terms of speed and convenience. I see a bigger role for longer distance, higher average speed rail service to act as a backbone. If rail average speed is too low, it will encourage more trips to go entirely by shared robotaxi and add to road congestion.
Autonomous tech in busses et al. *does* however unlock a business case for transit authorities to massively increase service and frequency. I see a best case scenario here as doubling down on the successful TTC model of frequent, reliable bus service casting a wide net and feeding volume into centralized mass transit nodes - as you suggest.
Cheap robo-taxis might help in the suburban commuter rail context as removing the need for parking at train stations (ex. GO) but really that's just side-stepping the underlying problem that *people shouldn't need a private car to get to a train station*.
My frustration with technologists tackling transportation problems is that most of them miss the point. Traffic and congestion is an urban design problem, not a technology problem. Truly solving it requires a decades long collaboration between industry, government and the public - a fundamental shift in the public's attitude to how they live and indeed the North American way of life. That is a *way* harder problem than any engineering feat, which is why the libertarian techno-futurist types insist that if they just throw enough engineers and dollars at the problem, we'll invent a magic technology that side-steps the issue altogether and saves the day.
It's naive, arrogant, and ultimately doomed to fail. There is no "disruption". There is no substitute for smart urban design, no quick fix. Cities around the world have proven that transportation can work at scale with current technology - why not follow their lead instead of wishing upon a star that some magic technology will someday save the day.
kEiThZ
Superstar
The great thing about a goal two years out is that you don't have show substantial progress and you can always keep it 2 years out.
TRONto
Active Member
We have already seen with ridesharing that roads become more congested. Robo-taxis may make transport cheaper and more accessible which is great but won't solve congestion issues. A strong case for robo-taxis is to bring people to GO stations and subway stations and back home.Tesla is indicating their intent to begin volume production of a dedicate robotaxi in 2024. I would not be surprised to see timelines slip a bit, but to me this indicates growing confidence in the technology being widely deployable.
Tesla Q1 Earnings: Robotaxi in 2024, Cybertruck in 2023, Record profit
Tesla just reported first-quarter results for 2022 and beat analysts’ expectations on the top and bottom lines. Despite factory shutdowns, inflationary pressu
I don't blame naysayers for their skepticism, but to completely discount the impact of autonomy in long term transportation planning, as well as electrification, seems completely irresponsible. It is really just a matter of time before this nut is cracked--the market opportunity is just too vast for it not to be the target of vast amounts of investment.
If we're planning subways, etc. for delivery in 2035 or 2040, those should plan for at least 80% probability of autonomous vehicles becoming widely deployed. The entire bus model will be up-ended, and become much more compelling in terms of speed and convenience. I see a bigger role for longer distance, higher average speed rail service to act as a backbone. If rail average speed is too low, it will encourage more trips to go entirely by shared robotaxi and add to road congestion.
crs1026
Superstar
The technology is coming regardless. I do think it will come quicker when we stop think of it as “teaching robots to figure out our roads” and start redesigning roads to remove the things that puzzle robots. Any number of technologies exist to give definitive clues of where the roads are, even in snow or fog.
The thing that reconciles the concern about congestion is the potential for AV’s to be multi-rider. The bus is a good example…. instead of an articulated behemoth passing every 15 minutes, service can become a smaller vehicle every 5 minutes…. possibly attracting even greater ridership. And electric, so the ambience is a lot more peaceful. One can assume fewer vehicles overall to handle today’s total trip volume, or greater capacity and modal share vs driver-contolled vehicles at current congestion levels.
The logical place to start is where we are building BRT. It’s just an extension of the dedicated-guideway people shuttles that are already in operation. Enough separation of vehicle types to address concerns about human drivers vs AV’s. Instead of HOV lanes….AV lanes. A small enough dataset that vehicles can navigate within current AI constraints. Don’t ask AV’s to go outside geofenced routes.
- Paul
The thing that reconciles the concern about congestion is the potential for AV’s to be multi-rider. The bus is a good example…. instead of an articulated behemoth passing every 15 minutes, service can become a smaller vehicle every 5 minutes…. possibly attracting even greater ridership. And electric, so the ambience is a lot more peaceful. One can assume fewer vehicles overall to handle today’s total trip volume, or greater capacity and modal share vs driver-contolled vehicles at current congestion levels.
The logical place to start is where we are building BRT. It’s just an extension of the dedicated-guideway people shuttles that are already in operation. Enough separation of vehicle types to address concerns about human drivers vs AV’s. Instead of HOV lanes….AV lanes. A small enough dataset that vehicles can navigate within current AI constraints. Don’t ask AV’s to go outside geofenced routes.
- Paul
kEiThZ
Superstar
It'll arrive in the same sense that Musk's vision of super cool tunnels whisking people everywhere got reduced to compact Tesla shuttles in Vegas. With lights.
Yeah. He might have something autonomous. It'll be doing donuts in a parking lot.
Yeah. He might have something autonomous. It'll be doing donuts in a parking lot.
afransen
Senior Member
I think the dismissive urbanist types are discounting how AVs will make things much worse in some ways if we fail to plan for the technology. It is coming whether we like it or not, and it is going to explode VMTs and make congestion worse. It also leaves some transit models open to disruption. Not liking the technology won't stop it from being adopted. It's not a matter of getting the local transit agency not to invest. When the technology works, the robotaxi companies will descend on cities like the e-scooter mobility businesses (Lyme, etc.) 10x. I don't think banning robotaxis is a politically viable solution as was done with e-scooters. I can only imagine taxing road use (aka tolls) can curb the insatiable demand for VMTs. We should not just bury our heads in the sand out of distaste for the technology or we're in for a rude awakening.
afransen
Senior Member
We might wish for robotaxis to be used only for last/first mile with transit taking the bulk of the trip, but we actually need to plan what the network needs to look like and how it needs to perform to make that a reality. Failing to solve congestion is something that will require a policy response. Making driving cheaper through electric AVs will increase demand and we have to prepare in order to mitigate that impact.
afransen
Senior Member
So your position is that we will never have autonomously operated vehicles on public roads? You know there are several services in operation today, albeit in less challenging climates.