Anyone else find it weird that we've not got self-driving trains yet? I mean, they're on rails, that seems to radically reduce the problem space. Yet we're starting with cars? Not even buses that take the same route every day?
I'll note that I do hear about robot driven trains in Japan, but usually as "what are those crazy Japanese up to" type stories, rather than "Why don't we have this obvious tech".
The Seattle (or Portland? can't remember which) airport has a self-driving train that shuttles people between terminals. Of course, there's no competing "traffic" to deal with in those cases, just a handful of trains all heading around a closed loop in the same direction, moving people from place to place.
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Anyone else find it weird that we've not got self-driving trains yet? I mean, they're on rails, that seems to radically reduce the problem space. Yet we're starting with cars? Not even buses that take the same route every day?
I'll note that I do hear about robot driven trains in Japan, but usually as "what are those crazy Japanese up to" type stories, rather than "Why don't we have this obvious tech".
The Seattle (or Portland? can't remember which) airport has a self-driving train that shuttles people between terminals. Of course, there's no competing "traffic" to deal with in those cases, just a handful of trains all heading around a closed loop in the same direction, moving people from place to place.
London's had driverless train since the 1980s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docklands_Light_Railway