Raise the Hammer

Are you aware that several other Ontario LRTs are currently on budget (Ottawa Confederation, Kitchener-Waterloo ION LRT, and Toronto Eglinton Crosstown LRT) -- using Ontario’s alternative financing and procurement (AFP) model is what is used now. While there is no guarantee against cost overruns, it should be more resistant to cost overrun than the Edmtonton LRT that, I do agree, had definitely its own messups.

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Now... as a fan of self-driving cars too, and as a computer programmer who understand some of their complexity -- here's some pertinent information, which I posted in another forum.

Yes, the SDCs will arrive by 2020s....but will you be able to send an empty vehicle unattended in a middle of a sensor-blinding snowstorm to pick up your kids, without it being smart enough to call the police/emergency if a drunk driver crashes into it at night (with the kid inside) while self-chauffering your kid back home? It's going to take a while longer to build "trust".

In case you didn't know... Level 4 isn't going to happen by 2018.

Useful information about NTHSA self driving capability levels

Level 0 -- Your old manual-shift car

Level 1 -- Your newer car with cruise control.

Level 2 -- That fancy car with automatic lanekeeping and adaptive cruise.

Level 3 -- You can safely text behind the wheel, but must intervene in an alarm.

Level 4 -- It can self-valet empty. It also can drive your kids unaccompanied to hockey practice in the middle of a snowstorm.

Tesla Autopilot is nearly Level 3; although legally it must be treated as Level 2 with full attention mandatory, and working/surfing/texting still not allowed. Eventually we may reach a point where Level 3 self-driving vehicle drivers are legally allowed to do light (interruptible) work like reading, watching movies, texting, etc, but must mandatorily intervene, say, within 10 seconds of an alarm (seatshaker, wheelshaker, klaxon alarm, etc).

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Level 4 self-driving cars is going to be a big, wonderful, beautiful, very fancy Pandora's Box, with both rainbows/unicorns and skull/crossbones beaming out of it simultaneously, both utopia and dystopia. You will yank the giftwrap off the Pandora Box, suddenly causing it to pop Jack-In-A-Box style in a beautifully kablooey pop in a big shower of confetti/glitter -- figuratively speaking.

• Efficiency -- With the prospect of empty vehicles going home to do tasks for kids or spouses, this could be a traffic disaster for freeways. Legislation may be needed if people abuse the privelage of sending empty vehicles dozens of miles.

• Moral -- Cars that are faced with an unavoidable fatality decision are going to decide whether to save the occupants or pedestrians. Picture the scenario of a baby stroller suddenly running in front of the car at the last second, from behind roadside newspaper boxes (unavoidably unseen by the car's sensors until too late; now a fatality has to happen). Car must instantly decide to crash into baby stroller OR suddenly veer into a parked car/lamppost 1 meter to the side. Legally solve this. Now consider the sole occupant of car is your child being soccermomed unaccompanied to school. Whose life goes? Whose Responsibility? Legislative? Insurance? Etc.

• Manned/Unmanned interactions -- Unmanned vehicles interacting with manned vehicles (bicyclists, drivers, buses, ambulances, police cars). How can a police car pull over an empty vehicle for an expired plate? Will governments be comfortable legally allowing empty vehicles? Will police be? Etc.

• Regulatory -- What you're allowed to do and what you're not allowed to do. People without a driver license stepping into a car? Drunk people stepping into the backseat of an empty self-driving car? How old must be children to go unaccompanied in a driverless car? Mailicious passengers trying to damage a self-driving taxi into causing an accident? Are you allowed to sleep for 8 hours in the bed at the back of a self-driving RV, or truck cab of a self-driving truck? What about self driving public transit (uber scale? carpool scale? minibus scale? large bus scale?) Etc. Etc. Etc.

• Robustness -- How many redundant sensors and cameras must a self-driving car have (e.g. safely function at damage/loss to 25% of sensors? 50% of sensors? 75% of sensors?), so they don't cause accidents when flying road debris damages a camera. This also affects regulatory and insurance, and creates ideas of futuristic safety testing regimens, to ensure they can survive major damage and still safely recover.

• Insurance -- What the insurance companies are willing to let you do with a Level 4 driverless car. Including all the above.

Safety -- Can a level 4 self-driving car safely drive in the middle of a blinding record rainstorm or major snowstorm blizzard, while carrying children that don't know what to do in an emergency? Even Google Car is currently unable to drive reliably in a rainstorm at this time. Level 4 chauffers (like unmanned Uber) isn't going to be legal until you solve this.

• Security -- Must be upped massively. Hackers. It's already happened. Hackers remotely kill a jeep causing the car to almost park itself on a freeway! And hackers have already blinded driverless cars. Laser pointer tricks a driverless car.

• Cost -- The cost of solving all the above, factored into your car's sticker price, your government taxes, and your monthly bills (including insurance). It may be so expensive that most carowners will give up carownership, and just hail a neighbour's empty unused car, coming over to your house Uber-style (as a result, conveniently paying a part of that neighbour's car bill!). We will see a hell of a lot of Level 3 soon (Tesla Autopilot is already almost Level 3).

We will even see Level 4 in designated areas (e.g. campuses, special lanes, designated roads, etc), maybe not too long after, but would not include the necessary intelligence to self-taxi people yet.

But the full legally allowed Level 4 self-chauffering freedom will build up like the Big One (the earthquake) for a VERY LONG TIME, and then go pop in a spetacular fancy Pandora Box of wonderfulness.

When will full Level 4 freedom occur?

Predictions vary widely, but is completely possible because of difficult thorny steps, it may not be until the very rough neighborhood of 2040s/2050s/2060s/2070s before we finally solve ALL THE ABOVE BULLETS to drive your children in the middle of a snowstorm, for 100% complete freedom on all Canada roads -- i.e. wide-open public roads (rather than private campuses or special lanes) -- and the old manual-drive cars on the roads fall apart and being retired -- before we see GTHA roads full of full Level 4 freedom self-driving cars. It is really a BIG step, because of all the above.

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TL;DR Main-corridor rapid transit will never become obsolete in the era of self-driving cars. Transport Canada cites only 1700-2200 cars per lane per hour on a freeway lane, and less than half that in city lanes (typically closer to 600-800 per lane per hour). At only 1.4 occupants per car average, that is not nearly as many people as LRVs.

The current design of Hamilton LRT allows it to be able eventually move up to 10,000 people per hour (up to 2-vehicle consists, 2 minute headways, but will start up as sole vehicles initially). The Calgary's successful C-Train LRT (3-vehicle consists) successfully move 18,000 people per hour per direction in one lane. This is more than non-grade-separated bus lanes are able to do (even traffic-prioritized BRT). Densification cannot happen in Hamilton downtown without first-order rapid transit (BLAST network, including LRT and BRT routes), that is able to move grand-total-number-of-people on King than today's cars alone.

Yes, driverless Uber-style self-hail vehicles may conveniently pick you up on a button press, but just like a ride to a Toronto subway stop in Toronto is sometimes a faster way to get to Toronto downtown, rapid transit routes (LRT) will be a faster way to get crosstown during peak as congestion gradually get worse in the 2020s+. Easier to convert key corridors to rapid transit use (LRT) now, than when it's already overflowing with vehicles (self-driving or not) that can only move a few hundred individuals per hour per lane.

I love the amazing tech developments of self driving vehicles, but unfortunately self driving vehicles do not equal congestion free utopia in the decades to come.

It's simple mathematics. Which guarantee self-driving vehicles is unable to replace main-corridor fast urban rapid transit.

Comment edited by mdrejhon on 2016-05-16 13:56:45