Great news – problem however there is often a lack of “having gut”. I hope we see some people willing to go above and beyond this time…
Autonomous PostBus in the mountains will be fun!
Despite the current state of self-driving cars, this is still great news.
Worst case scenario: it is impossible to safely use self-driving cars in remote regions, we wasted money in development and research, everything stays as is
Best case scenario: Villages with buses that come once every 4 hours now have regular public transport, PostBus now has technology that they can sell to rest of Switzerland and the world
In general a great development. As it stands, many rural places don’t get enough bus service – and it’s not really viable to ramp it up. On the other hand taxi prices in Switzerland are… interesting to say the least. And compared to your average Uber driver in Switzerland… ugh.
Anyway, it will depend on the technology used. Right now there are many competing systems at different levels of autonomy on the market with some better and some worse. For example, WayMo in the US seems to be around 80-90 % safer than human-driven cars. But at the same time I don’t know too much about the company SwissPost is partnering here. Hopefully it will be close to the Waymo level.
Either way – safer cars + more service for underserved regions while continuing to enable speedy and convenient individual mobility. Seems like a win-win.
The tests are being carried out in the cantons of St Gallen, Thurgau, Appenzell Innerrhoden and Appenzell Ausserrhoden.
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This is amazingly good news!
Great news – problem however there is often a lack of “having gut”. I hope we see some people willing to go above and beyond this time…
Autonomous PostBus in the mountains will be fun!
Despite the current state of self-driving cars, this is still great news.
Worst case scenario: it is impossible to safely use self-driving cars in remote regions, we wasted money in development and research, everything stays as is
Best case scenario: Villages with buses that come once every 4 hours now have regular public transport, PostBus now has technology that they can sell to rest of Switzerland and the world
In general a great development. As it stands, many rural places don’t get enough bus service – and it’s not really viable to ramp it up. On the other hand taxi prices in Switzerland are… interesting to say the least. And compared to your average Uber driver in Switzerland… ugh.
Anyway, it will depend on the technology used. Right now there are many competing systems at different levels of autonomy on the market with some better and some worse. For example, WayMo in the US seems to be around 80-90 % safer than human-driven cars. But at the same time I don’t know too much about the company SwissPost is partnering here. Hopefully it will be close to the Waymo level.
Either way – safer cars + more service for underserved regions while continuing to enable speedy and convenient individual mobility. Seems like a win-win.
The tests are being carried out in the cantons of St Gallen, Thurgau, Appenzell Innerrhoden and Appenzell Ausserrhoden.
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