Re:Driverless, Electric Shuttles Now Operating in Lyon, France
by Retric on Saturday October 01, 2016 @10:18AM
(#12617942)
These seem to be a good fit for collage campus, remote parking, or around large airports. Basically anywhere the trips are fairly short and people are normally carrying 10+ lb of stuff or through areas you don't want people walking around.
They might also work for retirement communities, hilly areas, or where weather is often terrible, basically when walking is unpleasant. Possibly even transit within amusement parks or other places where navigation can confuse people.
But, well slow speed, and high cost per passenger mile is a clear reason they are not in widespread use.
Re:Driverless, Electric Shuttles Now Operating in Lyon, France
by Animats on Sunday October 02, 2016 @01:15AM
(#12621144)
Looking at these, there are at least four or five more vendors. Few have even one installation. Nobody has a second operational installation. There's something wrong with this concept, but what?
There are a lot of these little things available. There's Easymile.[2] Theirs is so slow they have to show double-speed video. There's Olli, from Local Motors.[3] It's 3D printed and has a hipster website, but there are no installations. Even Ycombinator has one, Auro.[4]
Most of these things underperform a golf cart. They're all in the "when in doubt, slam on the brakes" speed range for non-belted passengers. This is in some ways a harder problem than driverless cars, where the passengers are belted in and can survive at least a 35MPH collision.
Maybe the solution to this is to provide seat belts, and limit speed to 5-6MPH until everyone is belted in. This will encourage people to buckle up, especially with a bit of nagging.
[1] http://navya.tech/?lang=en [2] https://vimeo.com/137217228 [3] http://meetolli.auto [4] http://www.aurobots.com/