This deliverbot article is captivating! Once you start thinking about it, the ramifications really become mind-blowing.

Repost?

Great site. I'm only part way through it, so far.

Deliverbots will give us the "physical internet", which I believe will change everything. As well as what you speak of, they can also function to work as a go-anywhere production-line so as to change a great deal of our industrial operations too.

Just some comments:

PRT: I agree with most of your thoughts on PRT. I think the ULTra system is the most promising PRT system, because it can expand out onto the roads and evolve into a "roborcar" system in its own right. And the advantages of that, like you've said, are overwhelming.

ULTra also has the potential to function as a 'horizontal elevator' for new residential developments. It can't take trucks, but does it need to for new developments? We don't need to take a truck on an elevator that supports the apartments of a high-riser, we just break down the parcels from the truck and send each small individual item to each apartment. PRT can do the same thing for 'the last mile' in a residential development. The included link is my own idea here.

http://andrewatkin.blogspot.com/2009/06/club-economies.html

Indeed, the demand for high-capacity trucking could be dramatically reduced with robocars because you don't have to worry about the cost of the driver overhead, so you can move in the direction of individual vehicles for individual items. Trucking could mostly be reduced to intercity operations only. In many ways small but large numbers of robocars could be more efficient than trucks due to the lack of intermediate stops. Certainly more energy-efficient.

Rail versus rubber:

Just thought I would point out that rubber can be made to be much more energy-efficient in a more specialised system. You can make wheels that move closer to the direction of push-bike wheels, which reduce rolling losses and to the point where those losses are as good as irrelevant. (this means relatively large diameter wheels, with a thin rubber ring. And also maybe high pressure tyres and low rolling-loss rubber). You can probably get away with this if the cars are operating in more controlled conditions, and in a more controlled way i.e. they don't have to deal with the extremes of what a traditional cars has to deal with.

You might like to check out my own closely related ideas relating to this:

http://andrewatkin.blogspot.com/2009/06/automated-transportation-network.html

All the best,

Andrew Atkin

Absolutely a mix of computer driven and human controlled driving can work. The issues, from a technical view, are not insurmountable. We have autopilots that can land commercial jets. This was no less difficult a task. The issue of safety is top on the list, and those dealing with the problem will have to ensure public safety. They of course know this. The next issue is economic. Is there a monetary benefit to having computer controlled vehicles? If the answer is yes, we will eventually see the roads covered with driverless cheap cars. We solve problems mostly based on incentive.

Back in 2011, I displayed a mock-up of my idea ( "my idea", which, as we see here, tend to be unoriginal in a world of seven billion people, some with plenty of time for pondering the future) for a "Driverless Errand Car (DEC)" at Maker Faire in San Mateo California. I fell short of getting the thing to drive around, even in a circle, as a demo, but people listened to my ideas regarding a car with no passengers. What makes a DEC so attractive, is its 24-hour availability. It's like adding another self. Rather than attempting to run around town after work, getting prescriptions, dry cleaning, milk, cat food, pizza, and the like, a DEC vehicle can proceed very slowly at 3AM, make stops, and return, all while you sleep. Unlike some of the mockups pictured here, my vision is for a vehicle that can climb stairs, get over obstacles, and doesn't need a 'pool table surface' to operate. My base criterion is that, being sick in bed with the flu, the DEC can leave the house, pick up suitable food and drink, and return to my bedside so I don't have to get up if I don't feel like it.

Large items? A couch, new desk, or refrigerator? 2x4s? sheets of plywood? I envision that robots will become cheap enough that we will own five or six, and that between two and four transportation robots will work together, with a specialized carriage suspended between them, that they will transport almost anything. Speed won't need to be a factor, with 1AM to 6AM pick up and delivery. And, in a further refinement of Uber, Lyft, etc., when you are not using your transportation robots, they can be assigned to other people to transport goods in the return direction (i.e., no "dead-heading"). Considering that our automobiles spend 93% of their functioning life, sitting parked, the energy requirements now demanded in the USA for 200 million vehicles extant, will probably drop by 70%. The automobile, with the unitized driver, powerplant, passenger compartment, and ownership (insurance, maintenance, sunk costs in the thousands) will disappear.