One negative about the self-driving car approach which is inherent to the approach is that most of the hard problems it has to solve come about from the fact that the driving environment is so chaotic, open and uncontrolled. Weather. Pedestrians. Jaywalkers. Animals. Kids. Shopping carts. Bad objects on the road. Other vehicles, many of which are human-driven. Or perhaps automated as well, but malfunctioning.
The obvious alternative approach is to create a transport system where the environment is more uniform, controlled, closed, stable. For example, a system of underground tunnels or above-ground tubes. With some kind of train or individual cabins that can move within it. Like subways but more advanced, efficient and end-to-end. Imagine a single common inter-locked system that everyone could use to do both their local daily commutes, and long distance travel, and round trips to orbital stations (via rides in carrier ships like Virgin Galactic is planning, or something like a space elevator.) There is one particular project like this that I've heard of, that has these qualities, called Evacuated Tube Transport. I like the idea of it. It sounds elegant and efficient and scalable. But has some challenges of its own. (Last mile access, industry pushback, safety/failsafe in the face of emergency situations, etc.) There's a specific company called ET3 which is supposedly trying to flesh out and build an implementation of it.
The obvious alternative approach is to create a transport system where the environment is more uniform, controlled, closed, stable. For example, a system of underground tunnels or above-ground tubes. With some kind of train or individual cabins that can move within it. Like subways but more advanced, efficient and end-to-end. Imagine a single common inter-locked system that everyone could use to do both their local daily commutes, and long distance travel, and round trips to orbital stations (via rides in carrier ships like Virgin Galactic is planning, or something like a space elevator.) There is one particular project like this that I've heard of, that has these qualities, called Evacuated Tube Transport. I like the idea of it. It sounds elegant and efficient and scalable. But has some challenges of its own. (Last mile access, industry pushback, safety/failsafe in the face of emergency situations, etc.) There's a specific company called ET3 which is supposedly trying to flesh out and build an implementation of it.