Worth considering that a single family luxury car is not the only vehicle type that could be in these tunnels.
Automation allows for all sorts of new options in vehicles. This is a platform and many services can sit atop it. No reason why people can’t develop a carpooling service for 6-12 person vans and run those on this. Or services that travel to clients rather than visa versa.
Also, and very important to the cost argument, is that system cost is offset by individuals and external services purchasing fleets. This makes it a lot more practical a transit option to build than typical public transit or freeway fixes which require multi-year, multi-billion dollar outlays and consequent decision making apparatus. Consider what properties an ideal transit option has:
a) easy to add very incremental capacity (vs big long projects)
b) doesn’t have to deal with right of way
c) shares costs with private market & individuals
d) can reach any location point-to-point
e) offers broad access to citizens
Seems this + autonomous fleets serving different market segments and needs has these properties. If it works.
Why would I take a van if I could take my own luxury car? If I was going to take a van I might as well take the subway. It would probably be more comfortable and roomy.
> So here's an idea - how about they run subway trains in these tunnels instead like they do in the rest of the world?
So here's an idea, why is there no subway trains there? Easy answers, not enough money/value into them.
He suggest a way to add value to the system, by allowing luxury cars to go through them and save traffic time. It's also a way to keep your car before and after the path, which can't happen in a subway. Theses add values.
Smaller tunnels can also be much more cost effective and can be done in an iterative way, based on the actual needs of the system. In Montreal (my city) that's a big issue where we just can't get the funds to improve our subway system because it's just so much money which is hard to justify. Our government pension program is currently funding a pretty big improvement in our transit system because THEY have the funds to do it and it's going to be profitable to them. They made it profitable to invest into our infrastructure and yet the freaking government can't do it.
Cost? We haven’t heard anything about how much it costs to take one of these per mile.
And ideally these systems mean less cars on the road / less car ownership, with higher utilization (cars sit idle 96% of the time, they’re the worlds most underutilized asset)
Automation allows for all sorts of new options in vehicles. This is a platform and many services can sit atop it. No reason why people can’t develop a carpooling service for 6-12 person vans and run those on this. Or services that travel to clients rather than visa versa.
Also, and very important to the cost argument, is that system cost is offset by individuals and external services purchasing fleets. This makes it a lot more practical a transit option to build than typical public transit or freeway fixes which require multi-year, multi-billion dollar outlays and consequent decision making apparatus. Consider what properties an ideal transit option has:
a) easy to add very incremental capacity (vs big long projects)
b) doesn’t have to deal with right of way
c) shares costs with private market & individuals
d) can reach any location point-to-point
e) offers broad access to citizens
Seems this + autonomous fleets serving different market segments and needs has these properties. If it works.