In any case surely with a combination of a partnership between a city/nation and various corportations we could move towards a more efficient, no/few fatality/injury form of transportation which gets people where they want to go which beats the cost/performance of a traditional road network without stuffing everyone into pubic transportation, spelling intended.
Unfortunately that's at odds with people wanting to go anywhere they want, whenever they want. Remember, roads also serve a vital role in preserving nature despite how much of nature is uprooted for roads. Odd to think of it that way, but true. Roads, keep heavy traffic to well defined areas. Imagine what would happen if anyone could take a motor vehicle anywhere they wanted at anytime.
In any case I was thinking that perhaps the next step would be to upgrade all of the low mileage, high use vehicles like cabs to electric. I don't think the typical cab travels more than the range of a good EV (100) miles every day and could be recharged whenever/whereever as cabs frequently have a lot of down time and yet they constitute a disproportionate quantity of miles traveled within a city.
Already happening in a lot of major metropolitan areas that can afford it. For smaller population centers, I'm not sure the investment in EVs is a very good proposition at the moment. Consider that many cab companies rely on heavily discounted cars and the cost is recouped over a period of years. Less time for heavily congested cities. Far far longer for less congested cities.
Perhaps beyond that we could move to the Total recall style 'Johny Cab' where the cab drives itself. Sure it doesn't make sense for a personal vehicle but if you consider the typical cab has two people working and a typical wages of over 40-50k a year in USD at least that could amortise over 5 years easily even if the cab itself cost 150k or more.
No thanks. Cabbies don't earn wages in quite the way you think. A friend and I worked for one for a while. This may not apply to all areas, but where I worked, a cabby was a state licensed contractor. You rented a car for a day (was 100 USD a day where we were), and got to keep whatever you made in fare and tips.
How much you can make depends greatly on how busy your area is, what time of day it is, how many cabbies are working at the same time you are, yadda yadda yadda.
Basically if you aren't in a big city, you might make 40k a year...working overtime, or if you guess right most of the time about which city quadrant to be in at what time. But it's also quite easy to make 20k or less. And some non-self motivated people will actually end up losing money.
No surprise, they didn't keep at it long.
And if you got into a fender bender. Even if it isn't your fault, you could end up on the "black list" for renting a cab.
Anyway, that was a bit of a long sidetrack, eh? First I don't think people would entire trust an automated cab (I know I wouldn't). After all it's not uncommon for a GPS device to give you the wrong directions to get somewhere.
And again, a good autopilot system with good anticollision systems, that can stay on the road and obey all traffic signs, lights, etc is going to be exhorbitantly expensive.
Some car companies (Toyota for example) spend millions each year on just anti-collision and stay on the road tech research. They've been doing it for a lot of years now and it still isn't ready for primetime. And that doesn't even get into traffic lights, traffic signs, construction changes, navigation, etc...
Afraid we're quite a ways from Minority Report style cars or Total Recall style cabs.
Regards,
SB
