Theres an entire unionized industry of train operators that has a problem with this statement.
Someone should really develop this idea
Submitted 3 days ago by jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works to [deleted]
https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/727022dd-471d-4ed2-9e51-9b6131acae34.jpeg
Comments
StaticFalconar@lemmy.world 2 days ago
tias@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
Up until very recently all train route planning in Sweden was done manually with huge sheets of paper and rulers. Scheduling trains is a very hard problem due to the inability for one train to pass another in many places and the constantly high congestion. Any change in the schedule affects everything.
In computer science it belongs to the class of “NP-hard” problems which are essentially intractable to solve optimally. There are various approximate methods that can be employed to get something that’s almost always good enough.
8oow3291d@feddit.dk 2 days ago
done manually with huge sheets of paper and rulers. Scheduling trains is a very hard problem
Just because it is a hard problem, it doesn’t mean it is easier to do with paper and rulers than with algorithms. So the problem being “hard” should be unrelated to Sweden being behind the times.
kbobabob@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
I’m having trouble understanding how that relates to the statement about train operators, the ones actually driving the trains because most trains are not autonomous.
jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Hold up. This gives me an even better idea. What if, and this is totally hypothetical, but instead of self driving cars, we used trains to transport people?
The train could even theoretically transport a whole bunch of people at one time.
Holy shit. I think we are really on to something here.
hansolo@lemmy.today 2 days ago
And you force people to live on train lines. You disenfranchise any community, especially rural poor, by making areas not supported by trains into useless land with added expenses just to live.
There’s no single solution to this. Many modes of transport need to be supported.
Snapz@lemmy.world 1 day ago
What if we had one BIG self driving car that dozens of people could comfortablely sit inside while traveling on a shared route?
We could have multiple vehicles traveling that same route so you’re almost always assured a ride without waiting long. And as were saving a lot of money with predictable road wear, less pollution and less accidents, we could probably make the rides very affordable, if not free. Last thought, kind of out there , but we could even have one person sit at the front of the bus and look out a window - If they saw a child, animal or some other potential issue on the road ahead, they could see it well ahead of time and hit some sort of hand or foot button that slows the vehicle to a stop temporarily so there aren’t any software related accidents from the self driving vehicle that result in injury or loss of life.
It will be like an uber… But for all of US. We’ll call it UBUS!
Sunflier@lemmy.world 2 days ago
But, my profit margin!
-Oil and gas companies
AliOski@feddit.nl 2 days ago
The problem with this is that they don’t solve the same problem.
I use the train for almost all my transportation, trains are amazing.
However, the train doesn’t bring me to my front door. The train doesn’t bring me to my exact destination.
A self-driving car would save me at least 45 minutes during my commutes (one way), purely because of the flexibility.
ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Literally buses?
If you have volume/demand problems:
- Buses not frequent enough
- Bus stop is not close enough
- Buses take a circuitous route / take too long
This will naturally increase the more people use them. So the only limiting factor is you, your family, neighbours etc.
AliOski@feddit.nl 11 hours ago
Thought about the limiting factor called “workforce”?
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 1 day ago
A
self-drivingcar would save me at least 45 minutes during my commutes (one way), purely because of the flexibility.Fixed that for you. I don’t see how “self-driving” would be 45 minutes faster.
AliOski@feddit.nl 1 day ago
True, but that requires me having a drivers license + requires me driving. We are talking about the comparison to train commutes and the usefulness of self-driving technology. I don’t drive the train.
Jiral@lemmy.world 2 days ago
A city built for cars (no matter if “self driving” or not) has to be built much more spread out. Distances for everything multiply. At the same time that spread out infrastructure leads to heavily mono-directional traffic, making rush hour load much worse.
That is why people in car only cities aren’t any faster than cities well designed for public transit.
AliOski@feddit.nl 1 day ago
Who said car-only? I said that self-driving cars and trains/buses/subway do not solve the same problem. They can coexist just like how they do now.
The only thing this technology does is allowing commute time to become more productive and allowing more automatization for a job that always has shortage (think of bus drivers). If self-driving technology would become sufficiently good, the bus in my village could drive 4 times an hour, purely because there is no bus-driver necessary.
Also, things like traffic jams are supposed to become rarer too with autonomous vehicles, because all those cars are supposed to coordinate with each other. You ever realized that many traffic jams could be solved if everybody would start driving at the exact same speed at the exact same moment, instead of accelerating, slowing down, accelerating, slowing down. This is all because of human reaction time and the lack of coordination between vehicles. Traffic accidents are also supposed to go down.
wezzzy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
Better train infatructure plus busses and metrolines will help with this problem
AliOski@feddit.nl 2 days ago
I don’t live in the USA, I live in the Netherlands, infrastructure here is very good, public transport-wise too. It’s just that a train can’t go to every little village that exists. There is a bus, but it only comes and goes once an hour (which is entirely reasonable for my village), which severely affects the travel time.
VitoRobles@lemmy.today 2 days ago
After visiting Tokyo, I’m convinced that both can exist. Trains take 95% of the travel and the 5% of the time you need to be someplace specific, car it is.
As for to your door… I was a 10 minute walk to every single destination I needed.
Fedizen@lemmy.world 1 day ago
A real self driving car would increase your commute because it would be able to transport children etc and the overall effect would be a like 30%+ increase in traffic as people buy or rent more self driving trips for people normally not able to rent rides.
The effect would be analogous to “Jevon’s Paradox” where more efficiency increases demand.
fodor@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Well yeah, of course there’s no way to build more train tracks. Can’t be helped, oh well, tough luck.
AliOski@feddit.nl 1 day ago
No, you can’t build train tracks to literally every village. Do you want all the land area to be covered in train tracks instead of roads?
halfapage@lemmy.world 2 days ago
[deleted]LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
I really do wonder what the implications of cars moving to electric energy will have on the impact of transportation infrastructure.
For instance I don’t believe electricity has the same “scarce-bility”/manipulation as fossil fuels do. The U.S. subsidizes oil so much because it is making the people who pay their campaigns rich. Solar and such are relatively easy compared to drilling your own oil, refining it and making it ready for your vehicle.
So when it gets to the point that it is more expensive for all cars to be gas powered, I think we will see that electricity companies won’t hold the same monopoly values at manipulating markets. So instead of saying, I want to pay $X a year in electric to drive my car, I’d rather pay X/3
Anyways I’m off topic but we’ll see
shuffle3765@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Pretty sure trains have drivers bro
DupaCycki@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Some don’t, actually. Driverless trains exist, including metro trains. At least two lines of the Paris metro system - namely lines 1 and 4 - are automated.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
In a Tunnel!
BagOfHeavyStones@piefed.social 2 days ago
Return of the landlines…
Trains only go where they have rails.
Want to give up your mobile phone?
harambe69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Mobile phones work only near cell towers, you dunderheaded rabbit blossom
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 2 days ago
Ear me out: trains for all the inter-city travels, busses for in-city travels that are big and…you walk for max 1km travels
Wait- no think about the investors!! Think about the suckers that need a big ass car to compensate!!razen@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Mobile phones have many other uses than just calling now. And also all of internet is just cables under the ocean with big data centers.
Trains are on of the best mode of transportation, it is something which can be easily electrified and most parts of the world have done that. It can hold around 1000 people at a time, the cost is also very very affordable. There are problems like delay and too crowded but those problems are policy problems not tech peoblems. Introducing more trains, adding more lines, adding more type of trains - high speed, semi speed, suburban, metro. This is one field where machine learning will be of very help and self driving locomotives with human assistant can be efficient too.
Arcanepotato@crazypeople.online 2 days ago
That’s actually…kinda genius. It’s not just fresh thinking: it’s a scalable and green solution to a real problem. I think you could really make a difference with this idea. Would you like to work out some ways we can make life worse for the working class while we implement it?
First_Thunder@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
It’s a niche idea from a small European nation, but have you tried having the trains late 2/3 of the time?
xavier666@lemmy.umucat.day 1 day ago
Green solution? That sounds like communism
the_grass_trainer@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Green solution? That sounds like weed!
kingofras@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I just can’t get you out of my head, boy your mechanical phrasing and can-do enthusiasm are all I think about