Ch-ch-ch-changes

kabayiri

The more I think about, the more I believe the £50bn+ on HS2 may be spend focussed in the wrong area.

By the time HS2 is ready the transport map could be completely different.

cells

kabayiri wrote: »

The more I think about, the more I believe the £50bn+ on HS2 may be spend focussed in the wrong area.

By the time HS2 is ready the transport map could be completely different.

self drive taxis will make it worthless

At maybe less than 40p a mile a self drive taxi can take you from London to Birmingham for <£40 door to door and a self drive taxi can likely hold 6 adults or less than a tenner an adult if you are going as a group. Trains may have higher top speeds but the door to door speeds are lower so these taxis overall will be faster too

coach companies will die
most intercity rail lines will be nonviable
domestic flight routes will die (eg about a million people a year do heathrow to Manchester. a self drive taxi will take you door to door for £80 and upto 6 adults.)

but then again maybe the government will slap a silly tax per mile on auto cars to keep the trains and domestic route airports alive for a little longer

antrobus

cells wrote: »

or in car parks. For example shopping centers have car parks with thousands of spaces that are deserted for 12 hours a day. They could go park themselves and juice up ready for the next day. ...

Only if the spaces were equipped with charging points. And they would have to be robotised charging points. Otherwise these self-drive cars are just going to sit there waiting for some kind hearted human to come and plug them in.:rotfl:

cells

antrobus wrote: »

Only if the spaces were equipped with charging points. And they would have to be robotised charging points. Otherwise these self-drive cars are just going to sit there waiting for some kind hearted human to come and plug them in.:rotfl:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2894345/Tesla-teases-electric-car-plugs-charge-Elon-Musk-describes-metal-snake-automatically-connects-vehicles.html

or pay a kid 5p per car to plug them into the wall

cells

kabayiri wrote: »

The more I think about, the more I believe the £50bn+ on HS2 may be spend focussed in the wrong area.

By the time HS2 is ready the transport map could be completely different.

door to door probably uber is quicker and cheaper right now

Their website suggests it would cost £175 point to point from London to Birmingham and it would be faster too (unless the train stations are very close to where you want to be on both ends). Thats for up to 4 Adults or less than £45 each

Also as uber gets more popular their costs should go down as the drivers will spend less and less dead time in between journeys (in this case they could get a paying return trip to London rather than empty one way)

robo cars make it more efficient still by getting rid of the most expensive part of uber which is the driver and also probably allowing the same size cars to seat a further two people to make it possible for 6 adults to share a robo uber taxi

Generali

cells wrote: »

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2894345/Tesla-teases-electric-car-plugs-charge-Elon-Musk-describes-metal-snake-automatically-connects-vehicles.html

or pay a kid 5p per car to plug them into the wall

And in Liverpool a bigger kid a score not to go round unplugging them all again!

cells

Generali wrote: »

And in Liverpool a bigger kid a score not to go round unplugging them all again!

dont worry there will be small, one self drive car LTD companies owned by LTD companies owned by LTD companies owned by LTD companies all registered in different nations owned by some made up person and those cars will be used as vandal control (aka running the vandals over)

antrobus

cells wrote: »

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2894345/Tesla-teases-electric-car-plugs-charge-Elon-Musk-describes-metal-snake-automatically-connects-vehicles.html

See. Told you you needed robotised charging facilties. Thanks for proving my point.:)

cells wrote: »

...or pay a kid 5p per car to plug them into the wall

5p per car? Clearly you have little experience of children, if you think they will do anything for 5p.

cells

antrobus wrote: »

5p per car? Clearly you have little experience of children, if you think they will do anything for 5p.

when i say pay kids 5p a car I mean pay Psychology graduates 5p a car to keep them off the dole

kabayiri

Thanks to Gen and Cells for threads like this.

It's easy to get lost in the bickering on other threads about Scotland or house prices.

Meanwhile, things continue to change all around us. There is no harm in speculating and projecting on these changes.

What is the state's role in all of this though? Do they sit idly by and pretend "market forces" do it's trick? Do they prod with various initiatives, but generally hands off?

It wasn't so long ago that the internet was a collection of interesting technologies with little more than promise. Now, on a commercial level, it's basically a handful of American megacorps with the rest feeding off scraps.

Will the same happen with transport?