Subway trains carry hundreds of people, so the cost of the driver for each passenger is low.

Also, subway systems are monopolies with strong drivers' unions. Subway managers have no strong financial incentive to reduce costs because the taxpayer foots the bill. In contrast, if Uber doesn't produce a driverless taxi service soon its management will be fired and will miss out on billions of dollars in bonuses.

I think we'll see driverless public taxis in Phoenix before we see driverless subway trains in New York. Self-driving trains are technically easier to develop, but self-driving cars will win thanks to the efficiencies of the free market.

Automation on subway trains is almost never about saving costs - even well paid drivers make up a very small percentage of the operational costs of a subway. The vast majority goes on maintenance.

In most cases the costs imposed by a wave of city-crippling strikes will far outstrip the minor cost gains from automating the rail line, so it only makes sense to actually automate and fire the drivers if the goal is actually political.

Subway drivers comprise a strong component of a country's labor power (because of their power to shut down critical infrastructure) and the alliances they typically hold with other unions and their political donations cement that. They don't just offset the power of the government they work under, they offset the power of executive/shareholder power in general.

Since labor and union power is largely what held income inequality in check until the 80s, the political goal behind crushing them is pretty clearly about increasing the wealth and income inequality chasm still further.

> union power is largely what held income inequality in check until the 80s

Would love to see actual evidence that this is true.

Here it is

https://voxeu.org/article/union-power-and-inequality

The link you posted only analyzes the relationship after 1980. It also doesn't compare multiple sources of inequality. That's not evidence for "union power is largely what held income inequality in check until the 80s"

Here's another study (that actually cites the one you linked) covering the same time period and shows multiple other factors having greater impact. https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2015/sdn1513.pdf

No it absolutely doesn't.

"Technological progress and the resulting rise in the skill premium (positives for growth and productivity) and the decline of some labor market institutions have contributed to inequality in both advanced economies and EMDCs."

Emphasis mine.

That ^^^ was literally the first reason given in the article.

The second point it makes is about the role policy-making plays, which of course is probably as important, but is intimately connected to the presence or absence of union power because who the hell do you think lobbies for those policies?

Institutional support (donations, political support, control of voting blocs, policy research, etc.) behind those policies (e.g. raise minimum wage) comes from unions whereas the policies do the opposite (e.g. lower minimum wage) come from business lobbies and high net worth individuals - who have opposing interests.

It's true that a decrease in labor power has probably contributed to rising inequality. That's not what you stated though; "It's a factor" and "it's the most important factor" are separate points. If you read the study I linked, you'll see that in advanced economies globalization and the skill premium have had roughly the same or larger impact as changes in labor institutions (which is a much bigger category than just "union power"). Regardless, both studies only show effects after 1980, not before.

> The second point it makes is about the role policy-making plays, which of course is probably as important, but is intimately connected to the presence or absence of union power because who the hell do you think lobbies for those policies?

Organized labor frequently advocate for policies that benefit their members at the expense of non-members (for example, licensing requirements) with ambiguous or detrimental affects on inequality. You use the example of minimum wage, but that's an ambiguous example too; we have some evidence that a high minimum wage actually decreases total low wage worker earnings[1], but a small increase (at least in the US) would probably be beneficial. To quote from the study I linked earlier

"Stronger labor market institutions could increase unemployment rates, reduce the wage differential between high skill and low-skill workers, and affect the labor share of income. The overall impact on income inequality, however, can be ambiguous: they increase unemployment, which tends to raise inequality, they can reduce wage dispersion, which tends to lower it, and they increase the wage share, which can have an ambiguous effect on inequality"

To be clear, it might be true that a decrease in labor power would be associated with policy that increases inequality but that's a non-obvious conclusion.

[1] https://evans.uw.edu/sites/default/files/NBER%20Working%20Pa...

>If you read the study I linked, you'll see that in advanced economies globalization and the skill premium have had roughly the same or larger impact

The paper you linked was not studying that. It was not measuring the impact of union density on inequality whereas the study I linked to had a methodology for measuring the two, correlating them and teasing out a causal impact. Your paper was simply going over the various issues surrounding inequality and talking about them.

The other stuff you mentioned is a combination of wrong and not relevant to this topic.

Incidentally, that stuff about licensing requirements being "the bane of every worker's existence" that you read about can typically be traced back to lobby institutions that are linked to Charles and David Koch (e.g. CATO). They started publishing "research" and press releases about the onerousness of stuff like hairdresser regulation in the 90s and early 00s after some of the brothers' high profile fights with the EPA. Isn't it fun to learn where your propaganda comes from and why? :)

The SkyTrain in Vancouver, Canada does not have drivers.

It has been in service since it was built for the 1986 World Expo.

Autonomous trains are not nearly as widespread as they could be, but this is not for technical reasons - it is for political reasons.

Paris' metro # 14 is driverless.

The new lines under construction (15, 16, 17 & 18, which will serve the greater Paris area) will also be fully automated.

One of the reasons is that the driver also doubles as emergency person. With autonomous systems one has to have staff ready to reach each section of the tracks quickly to lead evacuation from a tunnel in case of fire etc. A driver is trained to do so.

Pretty sure one of the Boston subway lines is autonomous (from the airport?), along with a smattering of subway lines around the world.

Blue line? Nope, it has a driver.

If that had to drive down a busy street it wouldn't be driverless.

The way it's configured it's basically an elevator.

I think Paris subway is driverless (at least some lines I traveled on). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_...