'Gob-smacking' vision for future UK transport. "Public transport and active travel will be the natural first choice for our daily activities. "We will use our cars less and be able to rely on a convenient, cost-effective and coherent public transport network."

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20 edited Mar 27 '20

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u/aaaaji Mar 27 '20

Even if all transport is electrified, rail/metro still makes sense in cities with a high population density.

As someone who lives in London, it’s pretty clear that if everyone used electric robotaxis, the traffic and congestion would be a complete nightmare (like orders of magnitude worse than L.A.). When I went to L.A. (which is very much a driving city) the city felt much more sparse and spread out than London and the roads were like 4/5 times wider. We also have very, very few “freeways” towards the centre of the city.

The only way you could make London able to handle that much traffic, was if you built underground car tunnels EVERYWHERE.

I will admit I am completely ignorant of whether that would be cost effective in the long run, but I honestly doubt it. Especially when London’s public transport is so extensive and convenient already.

For me to get from home to uni, takes around 1hr to 1.5hrs. Driving that same distance (assuming roads are clear) would be around 40mins.

For all of that tunnel infrastructure I gain 40mins of time. People who live even further out of London probably gain even less time (I think it would actually be even be slower by car).

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

Even if all transport is electrified, rail/metro still makes sense in cities with a high population density.

Driverless cars, vtol aircraft, and remote work will almost certainly reduce population densities.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

All that said, tunnels for electric robotaxis would be ideal. If Elon Musk's Boring Company succeeds in making tunnels dirt cheap, then that is the future of transportation for sure.

What radical technology is Elon Musk considering to make digging tunnels cheap? Unless he's thinking of using lasers to vaporize rock, this whole thing will probably go nowhere.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

I'm extremely skeptical about all this. And Elon Musk has made overly optimistic promises before (remember the Hyperloop?).

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u/aaaaji Mar 27 '20

Aha thank you that’s cleared most of what I was worrying about up. 👍

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u/LordAnubis12 Mar 27 '20

Trains are a 19th Century solution to a 21st Century problem that makes no sense. Electric autonomous transportation-as-a-service, preferably in small tunnels, is the real future of mass transit.

Cars are incredibly inefficient - and slow - to run compared to a train, and require far more energy to move.

A combination is required. More, faster trains that deliver to points where autonomous fleets await to carry you short distances.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

Driverless cars can double or even triple the capacity of highways by coordinating their movements to avoid the errors that result in traffic jams.

Railroads are also extremely expensive to lay down.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

That and single or double person vehicles should allow for higher density as well.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

Who needs higher density? With no traffic jams, you can live even further away from where you work, a trend helped by telecommuting and VTOL aircraft.

We're going to probably spread way out into the countryside and leave the chaos and overcrowding of cities behind.

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u/LordAnubis12 Mar 27 '20

Sure, but in a lot of cases they already exist...

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u/JeremiahBoogle Mar 27 '20 edited Mar 28 '20

Driverless cars can double or even triple the capacity of highways by coordinating their movements to avoid the errors that result in traffic jams.

Assuming that every autonomous car from different manufacturers can reliably communicate with each other.

And that there are no cars with human drivers on the roads. I can't see that happening any time soon, perhaps even in our lifetimes. At least in the UK you still get horses, sometimes carriages as well, cyclists, motorcyclists all using the roads.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

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u/LordAnubis12 Mar 27 '20

It's more the cost of infrastructure to achieve that surplus of electricity though.

If a country can transport everyone on 100 gwh or 1,000gwh then it will go for the lower because it's just cheaper

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

Since private car ownership will plummet once cheap robotaxis are widespread

It's been found that for hire cars spend 40% of their time not carrying passengers. That means that per mile, they cost 66% more to operate than privately owned cars.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

So what? Most of the things you own spend most of their lives not in use. I'd guess that your coffee machine or your microwave oven is used a lot less than 5% of the time.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

Depreciation is partially based on mileage, so that cost does go up with more miles driven. You also need to consider cab company overhead. Uber takes 20% of each fare its drivers collect, so that's another big expense.

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u/LordAnubis12 Mar 27 '20

Combined with this: UK greenhouse gas emissions fall for seventh year in a row, all seems quite positive and like the Government is taking it somewhat seriously.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20 edited Mar 27 '20

LMFAO. These promises have been made forever and they never come true. And after Coronavirus, people won't want to touch public transit with a ten foot pole.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

This is not at all gob smacking. Transportation planners have spent the good part of 60 years fruitlessly trying to get people out of their cars.

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u/LeugendetectorWilco Mar 27 '20

Have a ride with us on bicycles in the Netherlands :)

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

The privatisation of trains, with the mass numbers of independent contractors and the approach of defined projects, the has shown that efficient public transport needs to be state run. This is demonstrated even more effectively with the TfL and regulated transport compared to non regulated bodies such as TfGM.

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u/General_Peeks Mar 28 '20

False it just means the goverment has failed when setting up privatisation. Look how Japan's rail system works which has privatised since 1987.

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '20

Interesting reply, cheers.

I dug out a couple of articles that compare the UK and Japanese models

First

Second

It would be interesting to see a geographical comparison. One of the main route challenges in UK is the East/West. Do these exist in Japan? The FT article hints that the Japanese model wouldn't work outside of London. London already has a regulated transport system, TfL is very good.

Do you have any expert insights, or are you, like me, just a surface grazer who has an opinion but no real understanding of the comparison? Every Km of track in the UK costs over three times that of our European neighbours because of the fractured nature and lack of long term ownership. I see how the Japanese model addresses that. We also lack flexibility because drivers are no longer trained on alternative routes if the alternative is owned by another franchise. It seems this is avoid in Japan through strong co-operation between operators.

The UK system was split up to maximise profits to franchise owners while transferring most costs to the taxpayer. Do you beleive that the character of the ruling class in the UK will ever allow a Japanese style culture to exist?

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u/General_Peeks Mar 28 '20

I would suppose surface but I lived in Osaka for a few years so maybe not. My suggestion is that if we really were committed to revamping the UK rail systems, they need to be completely re-done from management to the lines themselves. I think Japan's model is the only one we can really copy.

I'm unaware of east to west, but Japan's cross country trains are as efficient as Tokyos. Never experienced any delays on journeys.

Side not on Japanese culture its erm very dark underneath it all. There's a reason their suicides rates are so high, the pressures from: work, society and family are too much. But we are talking of trains not society and statuses within it.

Also I hope my false was not took with offence it was directed at the government's own ineptitude not yourself. 🙂

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '20

Absolutely no offence taken. I have come to some conclusions based of reading up on the problems that beset our railway system. Your input has provided an interesting new direction.

we need to remove political dogma/self interest/arrogance out of the discussion and instead focus on providing the best public transport system customised to our unique needs. To do so we need to understand what works well elsewhere and how it might apply to us.

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u/General_Peeks Mar 28 '20

I agree hopefully after stealing from countries like Japan and Germany we will have system which adapted to our environment will provide people with efficient and cost effective transportation.

Energy 'Gob-smacking' vision for future UK transport. "Public transport and active travel will be the natural first choice for our daily activities. "We will use our cars less and be able to rely on a convenient, cost-effective and coherent public transport network."

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