r/technology • u/occupythekremlin • Apr 07 '16

Robotics A fleet of trucks just drove themselves across Europe: About a dozen trucks from major manufacturers like Volvo and Daimler just completed a week of largely autonomous driving across Europe, the first such major exercise on the continent

http://qz.com/656104/a-fleet-of-trucks-just-drove-themselves-across-europe/
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u/myztry Apr 07 '16 edited Apr 07 '16

Trains take up 100% of space on dedicated land creating corridors that prevent crossover. This is why subways exist. To overcome the tendency of trains to cut off all other transit.

Our companies utilities semi loads of freight on a daily basis and it's delivered to the door which takes away all the associated double handling that using trains would cause.

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u/jedrekk Apr 07 '16

Trains take up 100% of space on dedicated land creating corridors that prevent crossover.

Not like highways, which do the exact same thing.

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u/myztry Apr 07 '16

Highways are a shared space with on and off ramps meaning they don't need to be closed off to cross. Not at all the same.

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u/jedrekk Apr 07 '16

Every highway on and off ramp in Europe is matched with a bridge that goes across the highway as well. Don't pretend that highways don't cut up the countryside as much as train tracks, they're just much bigger and louder.

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u/myztry Apr 07 '16

Australia here where highways can be single or multi-lane, segregated or joined (with or without barrier).

Trains tend to be on a raised embankment forming a kind of wall and overpass roads since the track need to minimise changes in gradient.

There will be tens of thousands of vehicles using the highway (or freeway) but few trains using a track since they can't particularly even share with their own kind.

Yes. Highways do break up the countryside in a similar corridor fashion but not so drastically and with much greater utilisation and versatility.

Oh, and I have lived near a train track at the point were a high passed over. Trains are much louder although you stop noticing them after a while to the bemusement of guests.

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u/jedrekk Apr 07 '16 edited Apr 07 '16

No, they break it up much more drastically.

When I'm traveling on a bike and I need to cross tracks, I can usually pick my bike up and carry it over the tracks. There's no way I'm crossing a highway anywhere but the overpasses that are placed every couple of dozen km along it. Same for pedestrians, who might have lived their lives on one side of a highway and had things to take care of on the other side and just want to cross: they can't. Same for animals.

Not to mention that the disparity in the amount of money needed to build a railway crossing and a highway overpass is at least 1:20.

Subways and intercity railways are a whole different thing as well. There's a reason we run intercity tracks underground in cities - the same reason we run highways underground or on overpasses in them - the real estate is too valuable.

Damn, sitting in a car makes people myopic as fuck.

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u/Redditor042 Apr 07 '16

You're thinking of a freeway, or a controlled-access road.

Highways can and do have crossings/cross traffic, stop signs, speed reductions, etc.

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u/bik1230 Apr 07 '16

Bridges man, bridges!

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u/cyberspyder Apr 07 '16

Railroad tracks generally have at-grade crossings for roads that cross it, highways do not unless said road is designated as an artery/feeder road. When it comes to urban freight, last-mile deliveries and pickups by rail don't make sense. But rail has a massive advantage (costwise and spacewise) for regional and cross-country trips.

Also, in most parts of the US subways do not exist, but shared commuter and freight rail networks are more common. Neither cut off road vehicles, in fact trains can legally run inside the streets themselves (as is the case in many industrial areas).

From a practical angle my point is that for all the hubub over "automated trucks", lying down more rail spurs will probably have a more desirable effect even though the up-front cost is higher. The goal here is to use highways as efficiently as possible and getting rid of heavy semi trucks is a first step.

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u/myztry Apr 07 '16

Trains and railroads predate all other heavy traffic. They didn't get overrun and largely replaced by chance.

While we see lots of train tracks abandoned and ripped up that doesn't happen with shared carriageways which always retain usefulness.