In a statement from Stagecoach, the consortium said: "We are proud to have achieved a world first with our CAVForth autonomous bus service, demonstrating the potential for self-driving technology on a real-world registered timetable in East Scotland."
Hurrah! How did it go?
Built at an estimated cost of more than £6m, partly funded by the UK government, the fleet of five single-decker buses had the capacity to carry 10,000 passengers a week but needed two crew on board for safety reasons. In a brief statement, Stagecoach said that actual passenger numbers “did not reach expectations” and suggested this was a delay to the technology’s rollout rather than a setback.
Oh. Guess I shouldn't have asked.
The Scottish government has set a target to cut car usage by 20% by 2030 but the latest data shows that is a long way from being achieved.
It'll never be achieved. It's King Canute legislation. But hey, the Sassenachs are paying!
6 comments:
If you want to reduce car usage then you should recreate local cottage hospitals, local schools, local corner shops, and provide frequent bus services for the hours that people have to go to work, at night, for shifts, or day. It would take decades to undo the shift to bigger centralised servicers and would necessarily undo all the (alleged) efficiencies of size.
I'm old enough to remember when buses normally had a crew of two...
There are advantages to centralisation, but it isn't a universal panacea. It's equally wrong to decry the efficiencies of size as it is to decry the so-called wastefulness of small-scale. Take for example a large hospital, where there are enough A&E people to give 24/7 coverage v. the local hospital which is too small. In the first case, the ambulance journey is longer, in the second, there's potentially no-one there. Any solution is a compromise.
But if your whizzo self-driving bus needs a crew of two, only sitting there just in case, where's the benefit from all that technology?
I wouldn't buy it - but government folk will, it's not their money.
An ordinary bus requires a crew of one. A new, hi tech, autonomous, self driving bus needs a crew of two. How is this an improvement? It comes as no surprise that this scheme was paid for with other people's money.
Stonyground.
This seems as good a time as any to remember that, back in 2010, Stagecoach proposed replacing Glasgow’s Renfrew ferry with a 55-seater amphibious bus which would incorporate a river crossing into a standard bus route. The trials were ultimately unsuccessful but, at the time, optimism was running high:
‘Stagecoach is already pursuing another idea for a waterborne commuter service: a hovercraft between Kirkcaldy in Fife and Edinburgh across the Firth of Forth. It is intending to splash out £14m on the project.’
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/feb/08/water-bus-clyde-scotland-river
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