<story><title>Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars</title><url>http://blogs.forbes.com/alexknapp/2011/06/22/nevada-passes-law-authorizing-driverless-cars/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DanielStraight</author><text>How do you deal with the inherent inefficiency of having a separate vehicle for every passenger (or small group of passengers)?&lt;p&gt;Publicness is not the only benefit of public transportation. Trains and buses are incredibly efficient per passenger mile. They also take up a lot less space than cars, and last longer and cost less per passenger to manufacture. Making a car driverless doesn&apos;t solve these problems.</text></item><item><author>mkr-hn</author><text>I think driverless cars could be the future of public transportation. Instead of big trains and buses with limited reach, we would have thousands of public vehicles that take you where you need to go when you need to be there. It eliminates the big barriers to public transport--the lack of personal space, timing, and reach.&lt;p&gt;No car? Just hop on the municipal/county dispatch website, request a car, pay your fee, and wait for the nearest open vehicle to bring itself to you. It can even coexist peacefully with private transportation.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Cushman</author><text>The de facto standard in this country is one dedicated car per person, which spends 90% of its time sitting in a parking space. Communally shared cars will be massively more efficient than that, and, unlike buses and trains, will actually replace dedicated vehicles for a majority — some day 100% — of users.&lt;p&gt;The public transportation the public uses beats the one they don&apos;t.&lt;p&gt;Not to mention that communal vehicles would make electric cars suitable for any length of trip— Forget about exchanging batteries, just swap cars at the charging station.</text></comment>
<story><title>Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars</title><url>http://blogs.forbes.com/alexknapp/2011/06/22/nevada-passes-law-authorizing-driverless-cars/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DanielStraight</author><text>How do you deal with the inherent inefficiency of having a separate vehicle for every passenger (or small group of passengers)?&lt;p&gt;Publicness is not the only benefit of public transportation. Trains and buses are incredibly efficient per passenger mile. They also take up a lot less space than cars, and last longer and cost less per passenger to manufacture. Making a car driverless doesn&apos;t solve these problems.</text></item><item><author>mkr-hn</author><text>I think driverless cars could be the future of public transportation. Instead of big trains and buses with limited reach, we would have thousands of public vehicles that take you where you need to go when you need to be there. It eliminates the big barriers to public transport--the lack of personal space, timing, and reach.&lt;p&gt;No car? Just hop on the municipal/county dispatch website, request a car, pay your fee, and wait for the nearest open vehicle to bring itself to you. It can even coexist peacefully with private transportation.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dkokelley</author><text>Theoretically, driverless cars could be programmed to behave in a collective fashion. Yes, a train is incredibly efficient when 300 people need to go from the same place to a different place. But in reality, 300 people are coming from 300 places and going 300 places. Driverless cars could calculate partial carpools or transfers to more efficient vehicles like trains depending on the needs of the commuters. A &quot;smart car&quot; could drop the commuter(s) off at the train station, and another car could pick the commuter(s) up for the final leg of their trip.</text></comment>