> Buses won't work in a lot of the U.S. because of last-mile issues, in the way the suburbs were designed.
Roads won't work in a lot of the U.S. because of tax revenue issues, in the way the suburbs were designed.
On a more serious note: there is no point in building unsustainable transit for neighborhoods that can't even support their own infrastructure. Suburbia will always be car-dependent for exactly this last-mile issue, but the fix is to shorten the last mile such that a bus actually makes sense. Because even to run an automated car you need a road that needs to be maintained and paid for from time to time.
edit: also, busses don't necessarily mean "20m long with capacity of 100 people". Here in Europe we have small bus lines operating with busses of a capacity of 20 people. In fact, Vienna already has the exact thing you propose: https://www.wienerlinien.at/eportal3/ep/contentView.do/pageT...
This is how I see cargo transport going long term.
Even if the individual units only self drive enough to rearrange themselves in private areas before being driven on roads by an actual human, it feels like that could be a 'cargo container' type revolution.
First off, we need to get this environmentally clean. Obviously, this must all be electric. For last mile, battery electric is the obvious choice; however I think for main routes and highways some kind of wire system would be ideal. This could also charge the battery needed for the last mile or at truck stops and stuff.
Next, we need to make sure that these self-driving units (SDUs) are always centered under that wire. Software would be an easy choice, but with the power delivery arm attached any failure would result in infrastructure destruction, so I'd propose a system of steel guards that force the wheels such that they can't escape the predefined envelope.
Come to think about it, rubber-on-concrete is ridiculously bad when it comes to efficiency, so maybe the SDUs should have two sets of wheels, one for last mile and steel wheels for the much more favourable friction coefficient. Then we should couple these units together, because the combined traction force equalizes loads across the whole chain and makes for better acceleration of the linked units resulting in less traffic.
Finally, we should equip these SDUs with a radio like GSM or something such that they can communicate with each other and drive in breaking distance, so we can increase the overall speed limit.
Gosh, I wonder why nobody has thought of this before.
So I quite like trains and multi modal transport generally.
But if trucks are electric then it's not totally obvious to me that trains would win on cost or environmental factors despite the obvious advantage of tracks and direct electrification. They're already trialing overhead wires on some highways for electric trucks.
Luckily we don't need to choose between them anyway.
> They're already trialing overhead wires on some highways for electric trucks.
Yes, and it's a bad idea. The friction between tarmac and rubber is orders of magnitude worse than steel on steel. Electrification alone doesn't solve the problem.
Buses won't work in a lot of the U.S. because of last-mile issues, in the way the suburbs were designed.