Entirely unashamed anti car propaganda, and the more the better.

[maomao]

If the tech allows them to drive bumper to bumper at high speed, they'd take up nothing like the same space. And if you knew you'd be at work for eight hours, you could send it home, to park on your drive until you need it for the return journey. If it's using clean renewable energy, the extra mileage wouldn't be a problem. You need to think about what cars could be, rather than just what they are now.

This isn't an effective parody of the anti private car position because all the solutions already exist.

 

[Cid]

Self-drive vehicles should be able to rely on engine braking to a much greater extent than a normal car incidentally. Effectively the brakes would only be there for emergency stops... I'm not actually that averse to some degree of private unit incidentally. But I'd probably envisage it as something on the order of a smart car, with a motor designed for peak efficiency at ~20mph. It's main purpose being to get you to a mass transit unit, perhaps even slotting in for seamless transitions. Perhaps an expensive option in a city, but cheaper in dispersed rural communities, or for people with mobility issues.

 

[WouldBe]

They could cruise around less busy areas; wouldn't need static storage space.

Technology might well solve a lot of the problems of the current system, without the downside of the lack of flexibility and convenience of public transport. To rule out privately owned cars as part of the solution at this stage is crazy.

What if cars were small individual pods capable of carrying 1 occupant and a small amount of luggage or shopping? You would be able to fit several pods in the space of 1 car reducing the 'density' on the roads.

Technology is already looking at 'linking' vehicles together so a driver can drive a lorry and several others can follow closely behind. So if you wanted to go somewhere as a family you could 'link' several pods together and travel together.

 

[Cid]

What if cars were small individual pods capable of carrying 1 occupant and a small amount of luggage or shopping? You would be able to fit several pods in the space of 1 car reducing the 'density' on the roads.

Technology is already looking at 'linking' vehicles together so a driver can drive a lorry and several others can follow closely behind. So if you wanted to go somewhere as a family you could 'link' several pods together and travel together.

Yeah, this is what I've been talking about. When it eventually happens I can sit in a pub and moan that I came up with that ages ago while all the young people avoid me.

 

[8ball]

Technology is already looking at 'linking' vehicles together so a driver can drive a lorry and several others can follow closely behind. So if you wanted to go somewhere as a family you could 'link' several pods together and travel together.

Sounds like a ridiculous pipe dream on a few levels, but it would keep the kids from fighting in the back.

 

[Athos]

Lots of possibilities for the private car to be an important part of a transport solution.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

They could cruise around less busy areas; wouldn't need static storage space.

Technology might well solve a lot of the problems of the current system, without the downside of the lack of flexibility and convenience of public transport. To rule out privately owned cars as part of the solution at this stage is crazy.

No, privately owned cars are what's crazy. If you can create an fully autonomous vehicle network the need for private vehicles goes away.

 

[Cid]

Sounds like a ridiculous pipe dream on a few levels, but it would keep the kids from fighting in the back.

The thing is it genuinely isn't much of an engineering challenge. The difficult part is fully developing the AI systems.

 

[8ball]

Lots of possibilities for the private car to be an important part of a transport solution.

Communal pushbikes, though. They are light and cheap enough that you could pretty easily leave them within walking distance of a great many people.

 

[maomao]

When we've invented teleportation on demand from any point to any point at zero energy cost no one's going to want your smelly cars anyway.

 

[8ball]

No, privately owned cars are what's crazy. If you can create an fully autonomous vehicle network the need for private vehicles goes away.

What about self-employed vehicles?

 

[8ball]

The thing is it genuinely isn't much of an engineering challenge. The difficult part is fully developing the AI systems.

I'm not sure what degree of modularity you're looking at, but if you're just talking about a few cars going to same destination, I'd be inclined to agree.

 

[Cid]

Yeah, to come briefly back down to earth... Park and ride systems for outside commuters. Nationalised national transit system (busses and trains, electric). National standard for electric busses. Until driverless is fully developed, then look at more sophisticated systems.

 

[teuchter]

If the tech allows them to drive bumper to bumper at high speed, they'd take up nothing like the same space. And if you knew you'd be at work for eight hours, you could send it home, to park on your drive until you need it for the return journey. If it's using clean renewable energy, the extra mileage wouldn't be a problem. You need to think about what cars could be, rather than just what they are now.

You could develop this idea a little further... bumper to bumper at high speed... you could make them run on metal rails for greater energy efficiency...you could couple them together to make the technology less complex and avoid wasted space used up in multiple crumple zones...you could have a "sub pod" which is comprises of a human plus a bag. The chains of coupled-rail-cars could travel at high speed in between hubs, and at the hubs the "sub pods" could emerge from the coupled-rail-cars and dock into other vehicles optimised for the slower speed portion of the journey at each end. You could have a look around, and see if there is any existing infrastructure that could be used to employ this concept.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

You could develop this idea a little further... bumper to bumper at high speed... you could make them run on metal rails for greater energy efficiency...you could couple them together to make the technology less complex and avoid wasted space used up in multiple crumple zones...you could have a "sub pod" which is comprises of a human plus a bag. The chains of coupled-rail-cars could travel at high speed in between hubs, and at the hubs the "sub pods" could emerge from the coupled-rail-cars and dock into other vehicles optimised for the slower speed portion of the journey at each end. You could have a look around, and see if there is any existing infrastructure that could be used to employ this concept.

That'll never catch on.

 

[chilango]

Milan has about .5 cars per capita, compared with .3 for london. Italy is one of the most motorized countrys in the world at .72
Mexico has a expanding motor fleet .3 growing at about 7 %/year. Greater Mexico city, pop 21 mill, has gone from about 3.1 mill cars 2000 to 9.6 mill 2018 - thats a yearly growth around 16.7 %. Mexico city is considered the most traffic-congested town in the world. Milan is one of europes most polluted cities.
These are car crashes, not good examples - although i suppose its possible to learn from disasters and the handling of them.
I couldnt find any reliable statistics on car-free towns and cities in the alps...


Your long term goal is to ban private cars from the planet. I can agree with that, property is theft and so on. I suppose we still will need some vehicles - ambulances, fire squads, trucks, buses etc. Where would that leave us re cars per capita? .18 - the worldwide number of today? More? Less?
What would be your short and medium term goals, for the UK and the world? Starting from today with 73 million cars produced yearly and 1.3 billion vehicles on the roads, car travel making up 85 % of all distance travelled in UK, .62 cars per capita - where will we be in 5, 10, 20 years?

And how do you intend to get there?

Mexico City has terrible pollution from cars. I t noticeably improved when I was living there as they a) had a rota for which license plates could drive on which days b) had regular car free days when manor highways were opened up only for cyclists and runners etc. and c) were desperately working on improving public transport infrastructure.

I didn't know many people in Milan who owned cars. Not in the centre anyway. There was no parking and it was quicker, easier and cheaper to use the excellent public transport or walk or scooter everywhere.

You're a little fluid - shall we say - with your Mexican stats slipping easily from country wide to "Greater Mexico City" (perhaps overlay population growth with car growth there andd see what happens?) and then to Mexico City (the Distrito Federal) itself. Three very different entities.

Note also that both Milan and DF have geographical factors that really exacerbate their pollution. It was this high pollution that forced DF into action. Milan I believe is taking more steps now.

Of course, they're not "poster children" for a car-free city. They're examples of places where the continued James May mentality as shown by some on here has literally ground to a halt.

 

[xenon]

If the tech allows them to drive bumper to bumper at high speed, they'd take up nothing like the same space. And if you knew you'd be at work for eight hours, you could send it home, to park on your drive until you need it for the return journey. If it's using clean renewable energy, the extra mileage wouldn't be a problem. You need to think about what cars could be, rather than just what they are now.

LOL what's the point in that. You may as well just be on the bus.

I know there have been experiments with such technology enabled traffic formations. Road Train but it's not actually an argument in favour of single occupancy private transport, rather a way of managing it.

 

[WouldBe]

No, privately owned cars are what's crazy. If you can create an fully autonomous vehicle network the need for private vehicles goes away.

What about people who may need to go out at a moment's notice like district nurses or carers?

 

[xenon]

A future where you could hale a driverless self driving car from a central secure urban storage point would be pretty cool though. I'd be well up for that.

 

[WouldBe]

Communal pushbikes, though. They are light and cheap enough that you could pretty easily leave them within walking distance of a great many people.

They have tried that in some places and the bikes end up getting trashed.

 

[WouldBe]

When we've invented teleportation on demand from any point to any point at zero energy cost no one's going to want your smelly cars anyway.

You wouldn't need public transport or bikes either.

 

[Marty1]

One nice thing about moving away from cars is that it would free up a hell of a lot of space.
I guess Amazon would need to deliver all their shit by air, though, which would have some environmental impact..

Death by drone may become a thing in that scenario - imagine a drone falling onto you trying to lug a 15kg Amazon hamper box full of cans of beer.

Noise pollution would also be insane by drones - think of how many drones would be wizzing around carrying single parcels compared to vans that contain hundreds.

 

[Cid]

What about people who may need to go out at a moment's notice like district nurses or carers?

Clearly for exceptional cases you just make sure they have a vehicle on hand.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

What about people who may need to go out at a moment's notice like district nurses or carers?

what about what about what about what about

Just maybe if you get ride of the vast majority of private cars there's plenty of room left for the vanishingly small number of people that may have a genuine need?

 

[WouldBe]

You could develop this idea a little further... bumper to bumper at high speed... you could make them run on metal rails for greater energy efficiency...you could couple them together to make the technology less complex and avoid wasted space used up in multiple crumple zones...you could have a "sub pod" which is comprises of a human plus a bag. The chains of coupled-rail-cars could travel at high speed in between hubs, and at the hubs the "sub pods" could emerge from the coupled-rail-cars and dock into other vehicles optimised for the slower speed portion of the journey at each end. You could have a look around, and see if there is any existing infrastructure that could be used to employ this concept.

That'll never catch on.

Sounds a bit like Eurostar for transporting cars.

 

[Spymaster]

That'll never catch on.

Certainly not in this country it won't. The UK has, over about 150 years, proved itself entirely incapable of delivering such a system that works properly at a reasonable cost to its customers.

 

[8ball]

They have tried that in some places and the bikes end up getting trashed.

It's a good point. All solutions proposed really need to take account of the fact that c. 39% of people are cunts.

 

[WouldBe]

LOL what's the point in that. You may as well just be on the bus.

Except this 'bus' can go to multiple destinations at the same time.

 

[teuchter]

What about people who may need to go out at a moment's notice like district nurses or carers?

And they are totally reliant on their own car which they get into and it doesn't start and then there's no other readily available option. Nuts.

 

[deeyo]

I think you're splitting hairs with the distiction between owned and leased vehicles; the significant point is having sole control. But, maybe if there was a sufficently large fleet of shareable vehicles that one was always near instantly available, and the relative costs made sense, that model would make sense. And yes, an integrated system of cars (for local travel particularly in rural settings) that meshes well with other solutions for longer distance travel might be a solution. My point is that, with a bit of imagination, cars can be part of the answer; they're not necessarily the problem - particularly as they become safer and greener.

For now, and the forseeable future, cars are expensive machines. That most vehicles spend most of their existence standing idle or running more or less empty of passengers and cargo is a major waste of resources. You'd want these miracles of technology to run 24/7 with 5 passengers and a full load.
Fully automated vehicles could work while you were working and sleeping, driving other persons and stuff around. To expect the same vehicle that took you to work to drive you home would be naive.
Moving further into sci-fi/posadist territory, the sky is the limit. Your own car, your own skyship, your own space station... by then of course machines will be sentinent and may choose to do other stuff than driving us around...