Quote:
Originally Posted by kylemacmac
automated vehicle platooning through intersections via V2V and sensory tech is remarkable when you imagine the implications.
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Here's what I expect... very very long term. Like 2075...
PRT(Private Rail Transport)/PVT(Private Vehicle Transport) will ultimately win out. This is where all vehicles will be equiped with GPS beacons, and communicate with each other and traffic control equipment. Hey if we can do it with the Internet, we certainly can do it with conventional cars.
The early stages of this will be manually driven cars with automatically firing safety controls, akin to ATP (Automatic Tran Protection) in CBTC systems. Each road segment will either be "ON", "OFF", or "BYPASS" so every few blocks you switch between vehicle control networks automatically. People will also be fined automatically for violating strict safety rules, which will quickly make it expensive for people to drive manually.
The next stage will be primarily automated vehicles. If you have enough money you can buy a completely private vehicle to take you anywhere, and if you're lucky you get to drive the last mile to or from your destination if it's more than 100 meters from the road network. If you can't afford your own car, you can request any vehicle you want (eg as in Uber or Zip Car) for exclusive use for a limited period of time, ranging from an hour to a month. Anything less than an hour switches to a transit/taxi service which will find the closest empty automated vehicle and send it do your current location.
But none of this will happen until the safety environment is made strict enough so that no manually driven car collides with automated ones. Even police, fire and emergency vehicles would be integrated into the automated system, but allowed to override the vehicle network flow control to prioritize their traffic, and prevent collisions.
But this is something that is a long ways away, and Google is trying to make it work from the car's POV, but it just is not going to happen. It may help truckers eventually, by making it so that the truck can drive itself under ideal conditions, but city routes requires city-assisted automation.
Now, last detail. When I said PRT (Rail), I was envisioning a building-to-building network, eg Condos to Office buildings that complements electric powered surface vehicles. Except this track runs directly through one floor of the building and is covered like any pedestrian bridge. The purpose of the PRT is to reduce pedestrian traffic at ground level.