There’s been a lot of talk about driverless cars lately, car controlled by computers.
How about some driverless trains, isn’t it long past time for them?
Of course, what would we do about the Affirmative Action Unionized employees?
How many must die before we improve the operating system?
“How about some driverless trains, isn’t it long past time for them?”
I’ve been at a few airports that have driverless people movers.
I don’t think driverless trains are coming any time soon, but the federal government has put in place a requirement called ‘Positive train control’. When implemented, a controller could remotely stop a train, in case of terrorism. And, the infrastructure necessary to do this could also be used to monitor the speed of trains and remotely slow them down if they enter critical areas too fast.
So far, one of the major railroads has begun work on attempting to comply. The other major railroads have lobbied the federal government to remove the requirement - and so far they have got the implementation date extended repeatedly.
Its a classic case of public safety vs government interference...and like so many of these case in recent years, the boogeyman of terrorism is used as the ultimate reason why the government must interfere. On the other side of the scorecard, the railroads are a very strange animal, and they large ones practically owe their existence to federal land grants 150 years ago...so they have to accept a lot of regulation.
Anyway - sooner or later, speed related train crashes will become more rare.
There’s been a lot of talk about driverless cars lately, car controlled by computers.
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Don’t forget the Trucks that are making it onto the scene now.
Freightliner Inspiration Truck Unveiled at Hoover Dam
http://www.daimler-trucksnorthamerica.com/news/press-release-detail.aspx#freightliner-inspiration-truck-unveiled-at-hoover-2015-05-05
Why don't we just replace people with robots altogether? Then there would be no poverty and no wars and no injuries, no hunger, no gang violence. Utopia.
Not driverless, but enforcement for the drivers - systems that make it impossible to exceed speed limits or drive on track where there’s another train. It’s called Positive Train Control. I’ve worked on such systems for almost a decade now. It’s a hard problem but there’s a lot of people working on it. Incidentally my expertise in that area is what me think driverless cars are a pipe dream.