<story><title>Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare</title><url>https://kevinchen.co/blog/autonomous-trucking-harder-than-rideshare/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>capitainenemo</author><text>Hm. I did a quick search on freight percentages, EU vs US and google gave me this snippet off the top hit. &amp;quot;46 percent of European freight goes by truck while only 11 percent goes by rail, while in the United States more than 40 percent goes by rail while just 30 percent goes on the highway.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Seems US is doing pretty well on prioritising freight rail transport, despite brainwashing, at least compared to europe.&lt;p&gt;Which is probably a good thing.  Until that figure is a lot higher, passenger rail is just one more thing reducing the efficiencies of freight.</text></item><item><author>beedeebeedee</author><text>Build more railroads.&lt;p&gt;(I used to work for an autonomous truck company, and when you factor in the cost of roads in addition to the development of the trucks, it makes absolutely no sense to do autonomous trucking when you could do trains. As a culture, we&amp;#x27;ve been brainwashed not to fund trains. We collectively spend billions and billions on roads but would not dare spend money to build more tracks. It is shocking and ludicrous, but that&amp;#x27;s what happens when you suck up a century of propaganda from the fossil fuel and automotive industry).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>coalteddy</author><text>The reason is probably because, in the EU, passenger rail transport is prioritised over cargo. For example in Switzwerland rail cargo is mainly transported during the night because thats the only time the network isn&amp;#x27;t working at it&amp;#x27;s limit for the passenger trains.&lt;p&gt;In Canada, to my understanding, it&amp;#x27;s the other way round where passenger trains have been reduced because of the need for more cargo train trips. The USA might be similar.</text></comment>
<story><title>Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare</title><url>https://kevinchen.co/blog/autonomous-trucking-harder-than-rideshare/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>capitainenemo</author><text>Hm. I did a quick search on freight percentages, EU vs US and google gave me this snippet off the top hit. &amp;quot;46 percent of European freight goes by truck while only 11 percent goes by rail, while in the United States more than 40 percent goes by rail while just 30 percent goes on the highway.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Seems US is doing pretty well on prioritising freight rail transport, despite brainwashing, at least compared to europe.&lt;p&gt;Which is probably a good thing.  Until that figure is a lot higher, passenger rail is just one more thing reducing the efficiencies of freight.</text></item><item><author>beedeebeedee</author><text>Build more railroads.&lt;p&gt;(I used to work for an autonomous truck company, and when you factor in the cost of roads in addition to the development of the trucks, it makes absolutely no sense to do autonomous trucking when you could do trains. As a culture, we&amp;#x27;ve been brainwashed not to fund trains. We collectively spend billions and billions on roads but would not dare spend money to build more tracks. It is shocking and ludicrous, but that&amp;#x27;s what happens when you suck up a century of propaganda from the fossil fuel and automotive industry).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ehnto</author><text>So perhaps a priority could be to build more medium&amp;#x2F;high speed passenger rail, and get it off the freight lines?&lt;p&gt;Travelers and commuters win, cargo wins!&lt;p&gt;It is funny though, the US built it&amp;#x27;s current freight network in a comparatively low tech era, yet I doubt it could do it again in the current era due to funding and beauracracy.</text></comment>