There limiting factor is time, and driving from city business center to city business center will take longer than taking a train with good schedules all the more so if there is good public transportation from the train station. Likewise for commuting to and from work. Work may become for some a hybrid of telework at home and in person time. Couples may have one partner’s office in one city and the other’s in another. The appeal of living farther out is attractive for some as is living where both can commute to work when they need to go in, but when it is an in person day getting there without spending half the day commuting will be important. Trains again will be faster.
Cars driving as fast as trains will use more BTUs, even platooned.
Platooned autonomous cars will reduce congestion and speed the commute some. But not to train speed.
If long-distance, self-driving cars ever become so safe and commonplace that people read and work while they’re driving, there’s no reason not to put a toilet on board, too. When you stop to charge the battery, you could also plug in a hose to rinse out the tank.
Or, just use a toilet at the service plaza while the battery is charging. As long as the endurance and recharge of the batteries are worse than those of the average bladder, it should be fine.
Again, that’s the advantage of multi-passenger mass transit. When you’re carrying thirty individuals in a bus the length of two cars and the weight of ten, you can put a separate little restroom on board without seriously hampering your transport efficiency. And when you’re carrying a trainload of three hundred or more passengers, you can even put in a kitchen. But trying to include such facilities in an individual passenger car for one or two people makes it drastically less efficient.
I was thinking you could have a separate, small lavatory in a vehicle about the size of a van. Keep the door closed and it’s no worse than travelling in a motorhome. I just wonder how long it will take for self-driving cars to be so reliable and trusted that the operator would actually use the lavatory while the computer takes them down the road at 100 mph.
I don’t honestly know how self-driving cars will turn out. The battery and motors can be put in different places, so the shape of vehicles may change to allow things like lavatories. Or maybe the driving range will be short enough that we never go more than 3 hours without recharging, and human endurance will not be an issue.
AFAICT the smallest vehicles currently equipped with onboard restrooms are things like 20-passenger “limo buses” 25-35 feet long. I just don’t see it being feasible to put even a tiny lavatory inside a passenger car, although in a larger van it might be doable, as you say.
I think the basic problem with high-speed rail is a combination of gigantic capital costs, uncertain long-term demand, mediocre project management skills at all levels of the US government (as exemplified by California) and a costly and inefficient land acquisition and permitting process. Unless these latter problems are greatly reduced it’s not going to make sense in most of the country apart perhaps from the Acela corridor. Certainly the maps that pop up online showing high-speed rail criss-crossing the US are pie-in-the-sky fantasy.
Show me a private limo in which I can take a walk to stretch my legs. Stopping forward travel to get out of a car to walk/pee is a ridiculous “answer” to the comfort issue.
I think the bathroom and stretching legs issue is a bit of a reach. I have never reqlly considered bathroom breaks as a limit in my travels. If I’m in a self-driving car, it’s no big deal to tell it to stop at the next rest area. The car tells me we will be at the next on in 14 minutes, and I sit back and relax.
The main problem with driving ling distances is that it takes your full attention so you can’t do anything else. But if sitting in my car is like sitting in a living room or office, What do I care if I’m moving down the road?
I’m told I have to be in a business meeting in Calgary tomorrow afternoon, and doing so involves getting ip in the morning like I always do, then getting in my car to go to work. But instead of driving downtown the car heads out to the highway.
I spend the morning working from the car, even attending meetings, and then the car drops me off at the Calgary office at 1 pm, totally refreshed and having put in a good morning’s work,
I get back in my car at 4, grab a supper from a restaurant drive through on my way out of town, then relax and eat and watch a movie. I’m home by 7:30. No security lines, no waits at ticket booths, no packing and unpacking my stuff, no running around in terminals to book cars… Just a normal morning at the office, except the office is driving down the road. Cost of electricity for the drive? Maybe five or ten bucks.
Why would I ever travel any other way for such a distance? Even if was an 8 hour drive, well, i’m still just sitting in an office. This one just happens to be mobile. And if lots of people started doing this, services will emerge to make the experience better.
I’m glad you enjoy health such that you don’t have to think about mundane things like bathroom breaks, but we’re not all so lucky, nor can we count on a usable rest area being within 14 minutes.
So do you wet yourself regularly on long trips? If not, I’d say you figured out a way to manage your bladder. Self-driving cars would make that management easier.
Why are you still making this about your personal preferences? Who cares about your personal preferences? Your personal preferences are not relevant to the facts of this discussion, any more than mine are.
I plan long trips by considering the need for rest breaks and where/when they can be had, and no, I don’t see how I can merely assume the self-driving car is going to be able to do that planning for me. You stated outright that wasn’t something you considered, but please understand your personal preferences are not everybody’s, and if you are going to get mass uptake on this idea, you’re going to have to think about meeting the needs and preferences of those of us who are not just like you.
It’s not my personal preference! I’m 58, and don’t have the bladder of a 20 year old. I’m just saying that I don’t ‘plan’ for it because there are generally enough rest stops that it’s not an issue.
And no, the car obviously isn’t going to ‘plan’ my restroom breaks. It’s just going to drive me to the nearest one when I ask it to.
And again, we are talking about change on the margins. If you don’t feel that your bladder can tolerate a car drive, by all means take a train, fly, or whatever. But lots of people don’t have that problem, so,will choose to drive. The more that do, the less sense building new trains makes.
You’re asserting what others will choose to do, based on your own personal preferences. That’s ridiculous. There are many, many more factors at play than the very few you’ve brought up, when it comes to why people choose rail vs cars or vice versa.
This. The bathrooms on planes, trains and long haul busses are not installed as a passenger convenience. This is not a desired feature…it’s a necessary concession. Because these vehicles cannot stop on demand and pull off to let a passenger use the bathroom you have to install one. It’s there to support the weaknesses of the meat bags on board. It’s not there because it’s a luxury the meat bags demanded.
Autonomous EVs are so desirable explicitly because they are so flexible. You aren’t anchored to a metal track so you don’t need to make these concessions.
No it’s not. That’s literally where every single business decision starts. You eventually need to go get more data but personal experience is absolutely a valid input into the decision.
And the meat bags aboard this Tesla-sized conveyance are going to be okay with less consideration?
How do you expect people to lose themselves in productive work and reading and meetings and whatnot if they need to keep attention on something as mundane as “make sure the autonomous car doesn’t pass the last restroom for 40 miles”? You aren’t anchored to a metal track, but the restrooms (especially the clean and safe restrooms) aren’t everywhere.
A valid input? Yes. The sole input on which decisions will be based? Not so much.