Could driverless cars replace railways?

[HYPODERMIC]

Not that long ago, I remember reading a thread on this forum asking where we all think Britain's railways will be in 50 years; the replies were almost uniformly positive, mostly predicting that patronage will have risen and that several closed lines will have re-opened, both of which sound like entirely reasonable guesses given how things are panning out in today's Britain.

But I think that within the next fifty years the railways will probably enter a rapid, severe and terminal decline – leading to the permanent withdrawal of passenger services on most of the national network and widespread line closures.

Why? Because I think "driverless cars" - also known as autonomous vehicles - have the potential to deliver a brutal blow to railways, and indeed all public transport.

For those unfamiliar with driverless cars, they do what they say on the tin - through a mix of high-tech sensors and all manner of computational technologies, they're able to self-navigate without a human driver in control. That sounds like a futuristic fantasy, but the technology is here today and it’s already happening. Watch this video of the Google car:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdgQpa1pUUE

Clearly, current models are primitive and limited in scope. The technology needs to mature further before they’re a viable transport solution in real-world scenarios, and similarly electric vehicles as a whole have some maturing to do as well before oil producers should start panicking.

But I think we have to assume that the technology will improve, much as technology tends to do, especially as oil prices rise and congestion increases, pushing up the commercial incentive to develop electric/smart cars into mass-market products.

Just think of the potential benefits of driverless cars:

+ No need for a driving licence.
+ Commuting by car while working on a laptop.
+ Letting the car do the school run by itself.
+ Going to town and telling to car to drive home to save on parking costs.
+ Cars to driving closer together at higher speeds, increasing road capacity.
+ No more drunk driving and fewer road traffic accidents, so lower insurance costs.
+ Battery-powered, so very low fuel costs.
+ Autonomous car hire pools revolutionising urban transport.

Even if the mainlines survive, I can’t see a happy future ahead for regional railways. Winding branch lines thorugh semi-urban/semi-rural communities will be finished as soon as driverless cars provide a proper alternative.

Railways were born into a world of streetcars, trolleybuses, narrowboats, horse-draw carriages and telegrams. They are the last man standing from that Victorian age - and everything has its time.

Are railways doomed?

 

[SWT_USER]

Short answer: no.

 

[rebmcr]

Many can't afford a car.

 

[Manchester77]

Varying from 4 to 7 hours for me to drive from manchester to London in comparison to a predictable 2 / 2 and a half hours by train which could in theiroy if HS2 is built could be reduced further don't think that the car will win on long distance intercity routes

 

[Railsigns]

Even if the technology for driverless cars exists and has reached a mature state, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's practicable, affordable or even desirable to introduce it universally on our public highways. Not everyone wants to own a car, regardless of whether it can drive itself, and train travel will still have the advantage in terms of speed and comfort. So I don't believe driverless cars pose a threat to the railways.

 

[gswindale]

Whilst driver less cars have the potential to travel closer together; how does it work while there are still drivers on the road? Will they be able to adapt to the numbskulls out there in the same way to avoid accidents?

How will they speed up long distance travelling - will there be a higher speed limit for such vehicles which brings us back to the point above.

What happens if you get a technical fault. Logic suggests that the car should stop asap, but how will that affect the cars around it?

Interesting technology but given that the car should have killed the train & bike I don't think it'll cause the end of the railways.

 

[monty9120]

just like planes even though they fly themselves they need people there in case. just because the plane flys itself doesnt mean the pilot can be drunk lol that would be the same as a car

 

[yorksrob]

Well, I must admit, I have been watching the development of the driverless car with some alarm. There is no doubt that if the concept did take off , many of the railway‘s advantages might be neutralised. However, there are still a couple of issues that such vehicles won‘t by themselves solve.

Cost. However you drive it, you are still moving around a large object for a small group or single person. This will inevitably have a cost in terms of energy and pollution.

Secondly, congestion. We are still a very overcrowded country. Driverless cars would undoubtedly use road space more efficiently but there are still issues of sheer volume regarding congestion, and then you still have to find somewhere for the things to park themselves.

In contrast to the OP, I suspect that InterCity travel might suffer simply because the ABC1‘s would be able to pay for the things and do their work in them rather than first class. Conversely, the need for basic public transport wouldn‘t go away, so the rationale behind the regional railway would be less affected for the reasons cited above provided we as a country were still prepared to pay for it.

Finally, we‘d still need the trunk routes for freight, so it would make sense to still have longer distance services since you may as well make best use of the infrastructure - but more no frills, perhaps like XC.

Personally I hope they never take off, like the hovercars we were all supposed to have by now.

 

[MCW]

lets put it this way... in 50 years time I think we will have a shortage of rolling stock....

 

[JohnCarlson]

Not that long ago, I remember reading a thread on this forum asking where we all think Britain's railways will be in 50 years; the replies were almost uniformly positive, mostly predicting that patronage will have risen and that several closed lines will have re-opened, both of which sound like entirely reasonable guesses given how things are panning out in today's Britain.

But I think that within the next fifty years the railways will probably enter a rapid, severe and terminal decline – leading to the permanent withdrawal of passenger services on most of the national network and widespread line closures.

Why? Because I think "driverless cars" - also known as autonomous vehicles - have the potential to deliver a brutal blow to railways, and indeed all public transport.

For those unfamiliar with driverless cars, they do what they say on the tin - through a mix of high-tech sensors and all manner of computational technologies, they're able to self-navigate without a human driver in control. That sounds like a futuristic fantasy, but the technology is here today and it’s already happening. Watch this video of the Google car:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdgQpa1pUUE

Clearly, current models are primitive and limited in scope. The technology needs to mature further before they’re a viable transport solution in real-world scenarios, and similarly electric vehicles as a whole have some maturing to do as well before oil producers should start panicking.

But I think we have to assume that the technology will improve, much as technology tends to do, especially as oil prices rise and congestion increases, pushing up the commercial incentive to develop electric/smart cars into mass-market products.

Just think of the potential benefits of driverless cars:

+ No need for a driving licence.
+ Commuting by car while working on a laptop.
+ Letting the car do the school run by itself.
+ Going to town and telling to car to drive home to save on parking costs.
+ Cars to driving closer together at higher speeds, increasing road capacity.
+ No more drunk driving and fewer road traffic accidents, so lower insurance costs.
+ Battery-powered, so very low fuel costs.
+ Autonomous car hire pools revolutionising urban transport.

Even if the mainlines survive, I can’t see a happy future ahead for regional railways. Winding branch lines thorugh semi-urban/semi-rural communities will be finished as soon as driverless cars provide a proper alternative.

Railways were born into a world of streetcars, trolleybuses, narrowboats, horse-draw carriages and telegrams. They are the last man standing from that Victorian age - and everything has its time.

Are railways doomed?

No.

The list of point against driver less cars is almost endless.

Its rather obvious that during this test there are few other vehicles on the road. How would it cope on a busy intersection? How would the technology cope with masses of cars traveling at 80mph on a motorway and having to break in a spit second? No one is going to send their kids to school in something like this. You would still need a drivers license in case the system broke down. It would make no difference to areas like the SE of England commuter belt. As I say the list is endless and I cant be bothered to type in more.

You'll be saying monorails age going to take over next.



I

 

[cmjcf]

How would it cope on a busy intersection? How would the technology cope with masses of cars traveling at 80mph on a motorway and having to break in a spit second?

By all accounts they manage quite well. They certainly are capable of outperforming human drivers. There's also a significant network effect, given the things will be able to talk to each other to coordinate.

There may very well be arguments against them, but ill-informed Luddite nonsense such as your examples aren't among them, and don't really help the debate.

 

[dysonsphere]

I don't think so it will need a new technology completly such as matter transmission as in Star Trek or Larry Niven's ringworld to get rid of trains. In fact a few writers have come up with the idea of single addressable carriages that will run on the system joining and seperating under a central computer. That is more likely than driverless cars.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

lets put it this way... in 50 years time I think we will have a shortage of rolling stock....

.....except for Class 142 Pacers....

 

[HSTEd]

Battery powered cars are essentially limited to one battery range of travel per day.
Even if we get very rapidly charging batteries you will collapse the grid with rapid recharging loads appearing during and after rush hour.

Driverless cars will never be permitted in significant quantities on public roads because the road environment is not really very well controlled.
The sensors necessary to protect against sudden emerging threats from side roads is excessive, and they will still be slow.

 

[michael769]

While driverless cars will come they will still be quite space innefficient compared to rail. Yes they will be able to operate closer together than current cars, but consumers will still require (or desire) spacious vehicles, so bumper to bumper they still till occupy loads of space. Consider a 6 car unit carrying 6-700 people. Now imagine fitting 5-600 cars ito the same space.

There are no technologies out there which can come close to matching fully laden trains in terms of space, fuel and emission efficiency.

 

[TDK]

Oh damn, I forgot the milk, drat this car is programmed to take me home and it cannot deviate from that so I will use more time, more fuel and be very frustrated as ASDAS is 10 miles from where I live, what a load of utter rubbish.

 

[JohnCarlson]

By all accounts they manage quite well. They certainly are capable of outperforming human drivers. There's also a significant network effect, given the things will be able to talk to each other to coordinate.

There may very well be arguments against them, but ill-informed Luddite nonsense such as your examples aren't among them, and don't really help the debate.

Do you want to give any evidence for this? One only has to look at the debacle of the WCML signaling to see how grand schemes can go wrong.

John

 

[cmjcf]

One only has to look at the debacle of the WCML signaling to see how grand schemes can go wrong.

What's that got to do with autonomous vehicles?

 

[JohnCarlson]

What's that got to do with autonomous vehicles?

Do you really need someone to explain that to you...hock:

 

[cmjcf]

Do you really need someone to explain that to you...hock:

Erm ... yes? Last I heard, neither the trains nor the signalling on the WCML were autonomous.

 

[yorksrob]

From a technological point of view though, it's certainly not inconceivable that a computer driven car could monitor, take account of and react to other moving objects to a greater extent than a human operated one.

One thing I do wonder is how those for whom life behind the wheel is as much a reason for being as life on the iron road is for us, will react to being cocooned in a computer driven car !

 

[Muzer]

Trains still have two big advantages over autonomous cars, at least one of which will remain in the forseeable future:

* Don't get stuck in traffic so are faster getting into big cities (in most places at least, and certainly not as badly as cars!)
* Can be electric so rising petrol/diesel costs (on some lines) can affect ticket prices less.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Oh damn, I forgot the milk, drat this car is programmed to take me home and it cannot deviate from that so I will use more time, more fuel and be very frustrated as ASDAS is 10 miles from where I live, what a load of utter rubbish.

Wow, I see that nobody in the future will be intelligent enough to do the simple task of adding a via point, something sat navs can do today

 

[Antman]

Oh damn, I forgot the milk, drat this car is programmed to take me home and it cannot deviate from that so I will use more time, more fuel and be very frustrated as ASDAS is 10 miles from where I live, what a load of utter rubbish.

Exactly, I actually thought this thread was a belated April fools

 

[JohnCarlson]

Erm ... yes? Last I heard, neither the trains nor the signalling on the WCML were autonomous.

I am talking about the introduction of moving block signaling which worked well on slow speed metros but proved to be another matter when they tried to implement it on a high speed mainline railway.

I have no doubt specif examples of driverless car systems working in specific conditions can be produced. I very much doubt there is an example of how the system copes with a motorway packed with driverless cars traveling at high speed when one of them suddenly overturns and spins across the lanes. Until they system can cope as well as or better than driver controlled cars in that kind of situation it is effective useless.

As others have pointed out here trains are much more suited to high density passigner routes than cars weather the cars are driver less or not.

 

[90019]

*Awaits the imminent arrival of Zoe and its subsequent refusal to answer certain questions*

 

[Muzer]

I don't know whether driverless cars will be successful or not. I don't know enough about the technology to know whether or not it's viable. And I admit that. Debating what it would need to be able to do to be viable is also reasonable discussion. But people just proclaiming it to be infeasible for the most trivial of reasons are just being closed-minded, IMHO.

Sorry for the mini-rant, I just dislike it when people instantly decide before they've even learnt about it that a certain technology will never work. I've seen it happen a lot (from me as well, though hopefully I haven't done that recently...)

 

[Geargrinder]

Sorry but there are too many variables. Punctures, breakdowns, kids needing toilet, fallen trees, pedestrians, cycles, weather to list just a few. Once you have engineered solution to them all what have you got.....A TRAIN !

 

[Muzer]

Really? I don't see many of them hooked together, carrying members of the public transport without a driver and running on rails... by what definition would a perfected automated car be a train?

At least compared to cars with human drivers, I can't see too many of those causing a huge problem for engineers aside from your example of pedestrians - which would require a lot of clever programming but I wouldn't immediately proclaim to be impossible without making a train.

 

[yorksrob]

Whether or not we think it ultimately viable or not, it is certainly interesting to ponder what the railway might look like in a world of driverless cars. Fortunately, I don't think that would necessarily mean extinction !

 

[JohnCarlson]

From a technological point of view though, it's certainly not inconceivable that a computer driven car could monitor, take account of and react to other moving objects to a greater extent than a human operated one.

One thing I do wonder is how those for whom life behind the wheel is as much a reason for being as life on the iron road is for us, will react to being cocooned in a computer driven car !

Its not inconceivable because similar systems already exist, but for objects traveling at smaller speeds.

I believe many modern aircraft are inherently unstable. They need computer equipment to allow them to fly straight and there are already many unmanned drones in existence. However imagine the reception the idea of Ryanair introducing pilot less aircraft would get.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I don't know whether driverless cars will be successful or not. I don't know enough about the technology to know whether or not it's viable. And I admit that. Debating what it would need to be able to do to be viable is also reasonable discussion. But people just proclaiming it to be infeasible for the most trivial of reasons are just being closed-minded, IMHO.

Sorry for the mini-rant, I just dislike it when people instantly decide before they've even learnt about it that a certain technology will never work. I've seen it happen a lot (from me as well, though hopefully I haven't done that recently...)

I dont think asking how the system would cope with multiple high speed motorway pile ups is a trivial reason.