An article by Greg Lindsay and Anthony Townsend takes the shine off of self-driving cars and identifies a preferable avenue for autonomous vehicle technology: buses.
"The autonomous car will not be nearly as autonomous as its champions would have you believe," begins the article for Quartz by Greg Lindsay and Anthony Townsend.
After listing the many obstacles autonomous cars will have to overcome before they can be introduced into the market—much less adopted by the public—Lindsay and Townsend suggest a different focus: "…Google’s greatest shortcoming isn’t its technology, but how it has defined America’s transportation challenge. Our public transportation systems are running near historic highs in ridership, while using technology and business models from the 19th century. We should be upgrading these, not trying to fix America’s auto-dependent suburbs."
One upgrade that could "solve some of the most challenging transportation problems facing American cities" according to the article: platoons of buses traveling safely only feet apart at top speeds.
FULL STORY: Forget self-driving cars; we should be focusing on self-driving buses
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