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Re:Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle by papaf on Wednesday May 28, 2014 @02:23AM (#7808651)
There have been self-driving trains for some time now (Nuremberg, London Docklands). There are more people to be responsible for on a train and I do not see why a bus would be a special case.
Re:Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle by leoedin on Wednesday May 28, 2014 @06:58AM (#7809278)
The London docklands railway have a staff member on board who opens/closes the doors and starts the train moving. It's a less skilled (and therefore almost certainly cheaper) job than driving a train, but it's still a person onboard.

Apparently not all the trains in Nuremberg are staffed, so perhaps it does work? I suppose the train driver is often segregated from the passengers in a way which makes them almost absent anyway.

It will be interesting to see if completely unstaffed buses are adopted anywhere, and if that proves succesful. I'd imagine that security wise a staff member isn't really necessary during busy day time routes (but then conversely that's probably when they'd be the most cost effective and provide the highest utility).

Re:Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle by jacquesm on Wednesday May 28, 2014 @03:52AM (#7808868)
Trainstations are somewhat controlled, bus-stops are not, they can be just about anywhere.
Re:Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle by masklinn on Wednesday May 28, 2014 @05:16AM (#7809047)
Which is relevant to the difficulty of designing a self-driving bus, but says nothing about any driver responsibilities outside of driving.
Re:Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle by robryk on Wednesday May 28, 2014 @07:03AM (#7809302)
Not really. In case of a problem on board a train (unrelated to train's motion; for example, a medical emergency or a rowdy passenger), the train can usually be met by someone at the next station. In case of a bus, much more often there is no one to meet it at the next bus stop.