Driverless vehicles - Will they change cycling in any ways?

[the snail]

I cannot for the life of me see how driverless trucks can work, all this driving in convoy rubbish is a red herring, can you imagine the carnage when one of them suffers a blowout or mechanical failure? the real problems start when a delivery has tight. badly placed loading bays, the ones that skilled humans have to do several shunts to access, which loading bay to go to ? how do you instruct a 44 tonne robot such detail, wrong delivery address, then how do you refuel the trampers that are out all week, or even better on continental work, how do they disconnect the trailer without human intervention when the job involves taking a trailer from one depot to another, then selecting the correct trailer for the return trip, who opens the doors, or pulls the curtains back for the fork lift driver to be able to tip the thing, too many questions, with no answers imho

Pretty much everything you have described can be automated fairly easily, especially where you have a controlled environment like a loading bay. It is not too much of a stretch to completely automate loading, unloading and driving.

 

[simongt]

There was a recent discussion on R4 along these lines and it did occur to me that with driverless cars, if there is a collision, especially if it involves injury or death, then who is actually to blame - ?
Is it the driver who isn't actually driving, or is it the technology for failing to react in time to avoid said collision; then also the up-to-date maintenance of this technology has to be proven.
The insurance companies should have a wail of a time sorting that one out - !
Rather like the self parking mode that some cars now have. If the car hits another whilst in self parking mode, again who's to blame - ?

 

[icowden]

Yeah, whatever, latest Volvo's have 178 miles range, that's at best too, they will not all be electric any time soon

Volvo FL Electric has 278 miles range. The Tesla Semi has 500 miles.

 

[icowden]

You've obviously never had to go to business premises where someone gives the accounts address, or there's another warehouse a mile or so further along the industrial estate, and for added fun,it's only manned part time

If you are working with automated deliveries, that sort of detail gets programmed before you get onto the program. They won't be done on the fly for a while yet.

 

[icowden]

Yes, right, when the front tyre blows and drags the whole thing to that side at 56 mph and clips the vehicle in front, or even an offside front tyre pulls it in to other vehicles passing this nose to tail convoy, or god forbid some poor sod broken down on the hard shoulder already

Why would any of those things happen? If a tyre blows, the computers will compensate far faster than a human can. They will also instantaneously communicate to the rest of the convoy, assuming they are in convoy. If the hard shoulder has some one on it that a human can see, then the computer will be able to see. The advantage is it will also be able to compute instantly based on the load and speed of travel, whether it can safely stop in time, and take appropriate action. It's using maths, not instinct.

 

[Drago]

Rather like the self parking mode that some cars now have. If the car hits another whilst in self parking mode, again who's to blame - ?

As things legally stand under the Road Traffic Act, that would be the person either "driving" or "in charge of" the vehicle at the material time. That seems unlikely to fundamentally change.

From there may devolve a hierarchy of civil blame to be attributed towards manufacturers etc, but that is for the driver or person-in-charge-of to deal with as a separate matter.

It gets interesting in the case of, say, a driverless taxi where the passenger (who may not even possess a licence) sits in the back which the person nominally in charge could be a hundred miles away. That is the scenario where it gets gnarly and we may see a change in legislation, but for privately owned and operated vehicles the law is already quite clear on that score.

 

[Alex321]

Yeah, whatever, latest Volvo's have 178 miles range, that's at best too, they will not all be electric any time soon

Assuming you are defining "anytime soon" as meaning within the next 5 years or so, you are probably right.

If you are meaning much longer than that, then I doubt you are.

 

[Alex321]

Parallel parking a car maybe, throw a 40 foot trailer into the mix and see how that goes, especially dodging skips, fences, the wheel guides for the trailer that are sometimes installed, then the gentle bump onto the loading bay, without demolishing the building

They WILL be better at it than humans. That really is beyond doubt.

 

[Brandane]

I cannot for the life of me see how driverless trucks can work, all this driving in convoy rubbish is a red herring, can you imagine the carnage when one of them suffers a blowout or mechanical failure? the real problems start when a delivery has tight. badly placed loading bays, the ones that skilled humans have to do several shunts to access, which loading bay to go to ? how do you instruct a 44 tonne robot such detail, wrong delivery address, then how do you refuel the trampers that are out all week, or even better on continental work, how do they disconnect the trailer without human intervention when the job involves taking a trailer from one depot to another, then selecting the correct trailer for the return trip, who opens the doors, or pulls the curtains back for the fork lift driver to be able to tip the thing, too many questions, with no answers imho

These are questions I was wondering about too, as an ex HGV driver. Whoever thought of this plan has clearly never driven an HGV, as they have failed to realise there is much more to it than just driving. In fact, driving them is the easy bit. And all this automation might look ok in theory if you have a nice simple scenario of a full load going from A to B. In my experience most HGV work involved multiple collections and multiple drops. Different shapes and weights of pallets that need a lot of planning to organise weight distribution, ease of access when unloading, and actually getting it to fit into the trailer.

One other point, in the unlikely event that they ever get someone at each drop/collection point to open 40' curtains, unstrap the load, re-secure it, fasten the curtains (properly!!) then send the lorry on its way.... Who will VOSA/Police hunt down and hold responsible if the load ends up coming through the curtains at the first roundabout? At present this is the full responsibility of the driver. It will get messy when it is found that several people at each drop have had a hand in moving the load around and re-securing it.
Total pie in the sky, ideal world thinking IMHO...

 

[Brandane]

Volvo FL Electric has 278 miles range. The Tesla Semi has 500 miles.

This Volvo that can go 278 miles....
Would that be the tractor unit alone, or pulling an empty trailer, or pulling a full trailer at its maximum gross weight of 44 tonnes?
Whatever, 278 miles is not a lot in HGV land. I used to work for an air freight company based at Heathrow (but I worked from the Glasgow depot).
Night shift would drive the lorry from Heathrow to Glasgow, about 400 miles, with one 45 minute break. Once the load had been stripped and sorted for different destinations, the Aberdeen freight would be loaded on to the trailer and I would head for Aberdeen airport (160 miles each way) with perhaps a drop in Dundee en route. I would then have 3, 4, maybe more drops and collections around Dyce industrial estate, before having a 45 minute break then back to Glasgow to unload. From there the night shift driver would be waiting to load some more freight before taking the lorry back to Heathrow. So, in 36 hours, that is about 1120 miles. That is not un-typical of transport companies. If the lorry is not moving, it is not earning money.
I have no idea how long it takes to recharge the battery on the Volvo FL electric, but I reckon it will be a lot more than a 15 minute splash and dash at a fuel station. How long then would that 1120 mile journey take once you factor in recharging stops? That's before taking account of delays at drops/collections as the lorry lies waiting for staff at these places to find the time to carry out tasks previously discussed in the loading/unloading procedure. It's bad enough just now trying to convince a fork lift driver to take a few minutes to lift a few pallets off an already open trailer! Without a driver to kick ass and beg them to attend to your lorry, it could have a very, very, long wait.

 

[Badger_Boom]

This the lane keeping software than doesn't like country roads.

Or single carriageways merging into dual. I had a hire car for a trip to Cumbria that automatically braked when sections of the the A66 started to widen into two lanes. Presumably it got confused by what the lanes and markings were doing.

 

[Badger_Boom]

There was a recent discussion on R4 along these lines and it did occur to me that with driverless cars, if there is a collision, especially if it involves injury or death, then who is actually to blame - ?
Is it the driver who isn't actually driving, or is it the technology for failing to react in time to avoid said collision; then also the up-to-date maintenance of this technology has to be proven.
The insurance companies should have a wail of a time sorting that one out - !
Rather like the self parking mode that some cars now have. If the car hits another whilst in self parking mode, again who's to blame - ?

My bold: they’ll have a whale of a time deciding how much more to charge us all to cover the new risk.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Of course, the software and hardware in the diverless cars will need to be up-to-date at all times.
Otherwise known bugs might cause "accidents" that could have been avoided
who is to blame then!!!

None of this WIndows type thing where you can delay updates until a convenient time
Even then - when I was an IT Technician I would delay and Windows updates until it was convenient for me, In school it is normal to delay updates until it is convenient - normally allow one of two computers in the school and see how they go - then do the rest in a holiday.
Couldn't do that if Tesla (or any other company) sends out an update to the control system - it would need to be done NOW just in case

However - this must be true to aircraft software - given that there is a hight degree of automation and software helping the pilot. We saw that with the Boeing cock-ups a while ago.
How do they manage updates to the software??


anyone know??


I can see companies seeing this as a way of forcing people to get their car services and updated at the Main Dealer and trying to get people to avoid local garages.
And - how long will companies maintain the software. My car is 5 years old and already the traffic subscription has expired - in spite of being a lifteime subscription - because Traffic Master has stopped using that product.
There would need to be legislation to force companies to distribute safety releases until all relevant cars are off the road


Basically - it is a bag of worms!

 

[icowden]

Night shift would drive the lorry from Heathrow to Glasgow, about 400 miles, with one 45 minute break.

Lets use the Tesla Semi. It starts out with 500miles range(ish) fully loaded. So 200 miles down we get a 45 minute break during which it can charge back up probably 50-75% of what it has used. We are now at Glasgow in the same time, but with 200 miles of range left. You have 2 hours and 20 minutes left of permissible driving (based on an average speed of 60mph which is generous) for that day.

Once the load had been stripped and sorted for different destinations, the Aberdeen freight would be loaded on to the trailer and I would head for Aberdeen airport (160 miles each way) with perhaps a drop in Dundee en route. I would then have 3, 4, maybe more drops and collections around Dyce industrial estate, before having a 45 minute break then back to Glasgow to unload.

I don't see how. After another 160 miles of driving you would have been driving for 9 hours. That's you done for the day at Aberdeen Airport.

From there the night shift driver would be waiting to load some more freight before taking the lorry back to Heathrow. So, in 36 hours, that is about 1120 miles. That is not un-typical of transport companies. If the lorry is not moving, it is not earning money.

Fair enough. The Semi needs about two hours to recharge from near empty back to full. You have driven your 9 hours and can't work. The Semi has driven 560 miles in 9 hours and you have been able to rest for most of it, just doing the loading / unloading and maybe some manual driving at the destination if needed. You are fully rested. After a 2 hours break for recharging the Semi continues on through the night for another 560 miles of driving. You sleep. After 18 hours it has already completed 1120 miles. In 36 hours it can do twice as much, because it doesn't need a human driver all the time. The human hasn't been eliminated entirely in this scenario, but instead the human works as a head of operations. But twice as much has been delivered.

 

[DRM]

They WILL be better at it than humans. That really is beyond doubt.

You’ve obviously never seen some of the places HGV’s are expected to reverse into, as I’m sure @Brandane can attest to having driven the thing’s, I’ve driven 7.5 tonnes and that was bad enough