Cabin releases 2nd-gen fleet of sleeper bus from SF to LA and back
ridecabin.com
ridecabin.com
Of course the above scenario is just the tip of why I’m so excited about self driving RVs. Hop in at 8pm in your home town, work, watch TV until you’re ready to go to bed, wake up at your normal 6am, shower, get dressed, and step outside in front of the office at 7:45am. The RV departs, maybe driving itself “home”, while you work. At the end of the day, catch an Uber to the airport for a quick flight home... to be met at the airport by your RV, which whisks you home. You’re gone for under 24 hours from home, and were able to put in an 8+ hour day. Or, you take the RV all the way home, arriving at home by 8am. I’d buy one in a heartbeat if the price was around $0.20/mile. I might even consider using such an RV during a week long trip to the bay - using the RV as my hotel... having it drive out to Tracy each evening and parking in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Which in a strange way will alleviate Bay Area housing shortage - when you’re living in an RV, do you care how far away it’s parked from work if it’s self driving?
On reflection the other issue is that it doesn't go direct into downtown. But you can transfer to BART at Richmond so same same.
Do American supermarkets not have any time limits on parking? In the UK every single supermarket will have a 2-3 hour time limit on parking with anywhere between £70-100 fine for parking there for longer.
It's even in their corporate Q&A[1] Q: Can I park my RV at a Walmart store? A: While we do not offer electrical service or accommodations typically necessary for RV customers, Walmart values RV travelers and considers them among our best customers. Consequently, we do permit RV parking on our store parking lots as we are able. Permission to park is extended by individual store managers, based on availability of parking space and local laws. Please contact management in each store to ensure accommodations before parking your RV.
[1] https://corporate.walmart.com/frequently-asked-questions
For example:
https://goo.gl/maps/PqQR9BD3Kshs4vvZ9
I'm driving a semi truck. I'm parked in a Kroger parking lot in Fort Worth TX (in an out of the way corner), having slept here overnight. Kroger is unusual, I mostly use Walmart when I can't find "legitimate" parking, because the lots are generally bigger, near interstates, and easier to navigate a truck and 53 foot trailer through.
I tried a nearby truck stop first, but there were no spaces.
Two nights before I slept on an interstate on ramp on Alabama. There were ten to fifteen other trucks on that same ramp, and when I left the next morning most of the subsequent ramps were full of trucks.
Which is to say, I'm a frequent Walmart parker, by necessity.
I've never seen a specific time limit at a Walmart lot. Sometimes I see no truck parking signs at Walmart, or no overnight signs (and sometimes i park there anyway, especially if there are other trucks there).
I have seen time limit signs at some rest areas, for six or eight hours. Yet truckers are required to stop for at least ten hours between working days. I ignore those signs.
And by the way, depending on the part of the country, those rest area off and on ramps are usually also packed with trucks.
I've only been told to move once, waking me from sleep, when I accidentally parked in a paid reserved space at a truck stop. (Yep, they have those, more and more.)
Don't know, but certainly not that. Even the huge supermarkets with their spacious(for the UK) car parks are way too narrow for a large truck - the delivery entrance is usually elsewhere, you couldn't even make a turn with one in here - as an example, that's probably the largest supermarket with the largest amount of parking anywhere in my area - look at how small these intersections are, no way you would fit a truck here.
https://www.google.pl/maps/@55.0137268,-1.6641004,3a,75y,333...
Clearly explained here: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/scotland/law-and-courts/pa...
I don't understand how free parking satisfies the elements of a contract. There is no consideration. This would make sense if you paid for parking (thereby forming a contract) and overstayed (breach of contract).
Can you explain that for me?
I can't wait to park my RV 30 miles away from work, go to sleep, and be woken up at 4am due to jostling and rush-hour noise as a fleet of hundreds of RVs all try to self-drive themselves into the city.
I can't wait to use one of the least fuel-efficient vehicles possible, and make it even worse by having it drive itself around constantly to meet me at my office (since there's nowhere for it to park inside the city). It's okay, climate change will only be killing the people who can't afford their own personal RV.
* They operate a single service once a week on a round trip from SF to LA that departs SF 11pm Friday and departs LA 11pm Sunday? And they have no published timetable beyond Dec 2020?
* The bus has twenty total berths and each one costs about $100? Five of the berths feature the "Cloud Bump Cancellation System" thing that's being talked up on the ridecabin.com/product page?
* So do they have one total bus?
* They are selling about $4k per week of bus tickets? Does that cover the operating expenses of their very nice looking booking system and the regulatory obligations associated with being a bus company?
* What happens if something happens to that one bus -- does everyone get some other kind of bus ticket or what? The terms of transport seems to say ( https://www.ridecabin.com/termsoftransportationservices ) that they'll try to buy you a bus ticket if their bus isn't working. So ... if the bus is broken down you probably don't know until 11pm and then, how long does it take to get an alternate bus ticket? Where do those backup buses leave from and what timetables do they typically use and how do you get there?
I’m a veteran of overnight train service between Chicago and Pittsburgh. One thing I noticed is that cheap flights are still a huge waste of time. If you fly out Friday night, you spend all evening in airports, risk getting bumped off an overbooked flight, and arrive tired at a hotel you have to pay for as well. On the way back you need an early enough flight that you aren’t dead at work on Monday.
On the overnight train you hang with friends near the station, hop on the train and go to sleep, waking up fresh on Saturday morning. You have the whole weekend to do whatever and you hop on the train at the end of Sunday. Monday morning you arrive fresh, probably 20 minutes early for work.
Trains are a delightful way to travel - and as well, get some good work done. Some of my happiest code was written while castles and rivers and villages scrolled by on the window ..
In my opinion the 'long slow travel .. while sleeping/working' method of getting around is far more preferable to the 'jet age tin-can' mode, no matter how far and fast. I'd happily take a train anywhere in the world, were such a thing feasible ..
I just had one of my most focused, productive (and enjoyable!) coding sessions of my life on a Zurich -> SFO flight. It was a day flight, 12 hours long. I was lucky enough to have a bulkhead seat in economy and conditions were perfect - it was dark (enough), I had absolute focus, unlimited coffee that got refilled automatically ;) snacks, meals, zero phone calls/distractions, and good-enough WiFi. I’ve never felt 12 hours vanish so quickly (and code appear so fluidly ;)
I wish there was a train service that departed Los Angeles around 9PM, got in to San Jose at 7AM, and then expressed to San Francisco for arrival by 8.
HSR ends up being a heavily subsidized option for upper middle class people and business travelers. (Look at who is in a typical Acela or even Northeast Regional train.)
So to be more precise, there is no HSR in California because (1) the fact that we suck at infrastructure projects makes it a very expensive proposition; (2) that taxpayer funded expense would go to benefitting a relatively small and well off set of people living in SF and LA.
(Also, which “republicans?” California doesn’t have a single republican in elected statewide office.)
> The French bullet train from Paris to Lyon is often cited as a line that is profitable, but it has a fare of 52 cents a mile. The German bullet train from Hannover to Wurzburg charges 46 cents a mile.
> On the East Coast, Amtrak’s Acela system, the closest thing to high-speed rail now operating in the U.S., charges an average of about 50 cents a mile for the 454-mile trip between Washington and Boston.
US bus fares are much cheaper. The exact same trip on the Bolt Bus would cost just $212 for a family of four, $0.11 per passenger mile.
You get outside of Western Europe and Japan and trains tend to get cheaper--don't have recent experience with China--but western trains are pretty pricey generally, especially of the walk up to the counter and buy a ticket variety.
Actually they can be 200+ each way
Yes, in some countries public transport is cheap. Also flux is is super cheap But trains are just expensive. It’s almost always cheaper to fly. That’s for 1 person. Multiply by 4 and it makes no sense to take a train.
> Whenever the vehicle experiences an event that will create vertical acceleration for our resting guests (the feeling of “bumpiness”)
aka whenever the vehicle goes over a bump?
You wake up at 2am, look out the front window and see a truck powering straight at you, before one of the drivers swerves at the last minute.
Saying that, Vietnamese sleeping busses are terrifying because Vietnamese roads are terrifying. Most Western countries have relatively safe roads - bus crashes are really rare events.
There are multiple private operators which provide this service. Personally, I dont have too hard a time sleeping in one. It also offers more privacy than a typical sitting bus or if you are a couple you can book two beds.
There have been a couple of accidents though and people have died. Not too sure if the accident rate is more than normal sitting buses - sleeper buses arent perceived more 'risky' in India as compared to the siting ones.
This reads like parody (road turbulence?!). I haven't done it in a while, but isn't I-5 between LA and SF is a pretty normal interstate in terms of ride quality? They make it sound like an off road experience. I could see emphasizing a quiet ride, but just about any vehicle should be a smooth one.
"In 2009, the Maglev system was approved and entered commercial construction. The linear Chuo Shinkansen line is planned to link Tokyo and Nagoya by the year 2027."
“1.6x smoother than a Maglev train” (which I highly doubt because they don’t have connection to the ground and ‘fly’ above the guard rail but whatever)
How many Californians have ever been on a Maglev (such as the Shanghai Transrapid). How does anyone know what 1.6x smoother means compared to something uncomparable
Maybe I'll call this idea 'a high-speed train' and propose that California build one between LA and SF... oh wait.
China has been able to build out a high speed network fairly quickly. Why is it that? Is it just because they're cutting corners?
What? There is absolutely recourse, such as "sue them and at a minimum tie the project up in lawsuits for years". Or "be furious and rally with lots of other furious land owners/interested citizens and vote the bums out" because focused single interests, even as minorities, often can exert a great deal of political influence in a democracy. Or even illegally resisting through various means, which might not affect this area of California specifically but is a real threat in some parts of the US.
Eminent domain has an important place and has be used well, as well as abused. But whether justified or not its use, particularly in modern, is frequently fraught with controversy and political/legal battles.
The power as written is pretty powerful and has only gotten more powerful and broad every time it's challenged in court. Since it's hard to argue that building a high speed rail isn't "public use", the only thing you'd be suing over would be the "just compensation" part.
I believe in that case, the government can take and use first, and you can lawsuit afterwards over how much money you think it's worth which really doesn't stall anything.
If the government can use eminent domain successfully take over land to give to private developers to build a mall, or even take it just to increase city revenues, it sure as hell can use it to build a train.
Likewise, in American areas with good rail transport, you see business boom around it. The net gain in commerce, sales tax revenue, etc. cannot easily be measured, but it's significant and American could benefit greatly with better rail transport. You'd see America begin to collapse in and become less spread out within less than 50 years (especially in urban spaces).
From a legal perspective eminent powers can be exercised quite efficiently. They haven't been exercised efficiently in California because of politics. HSR officials spend far too long haggling with farmers and pay much more than a court would require in an attempt to minimize negative media attention. But it has backfired by drawing things out and ballooning costs.
Only the first line was built in the 1960s.
The latest lines to be built are the Hokuriku Shinkansen (completed 1997-2015), Kyushu Shinkansen (built between 1991-2011) and the Hokkaido Shinkansen (construction strted 2005, still under construction). And of course the maglev Shinkansen has now started construction.
"As a result, many states changed their eminent domain laws. Prior to the Kelo decision, only seven states specifically prohibited the use of eminent domain for economic development except to eliminate blight. Since the decision, forty-five states have amended their eminent domain laws, although some of these changes are cosmetic"
And in the end, they didn't even use her property as intended:
"In spite of repeated efforts, the redeveloper (who stood to get a 91-acre (370,000 m2) waterfront tract of land for $1 per year)[citation needed] was unable to obtain financing, and the redevelopment project was abandoned. As of the beginning of 2010, the original Kelo property was a vacant lot, generating no tax revenue for the city.[2] In the aftermath of 2011's Hurricane Irene, the now-closed New London redevelopment area was turned into a dump for storm debris such as tree branches and other vegetation."
Both have the same answer: because there's a whole lot of lobbyists that don't want it built. And it's not a secret - even the first segment they're building is just a screaming indicator of how little they want this thing to come to life.
Neither the airlines nor the car manufacturers nor the petrochemical companies nor billionaires like the Kochs want the thing to happen, so they're happy to shut it down at every possible turn - just look at every propaganda piece the "Reason Foundation" keeps pumping out against the project.
France and Italy are covered in high speed rail projects that make this one seem almost trivial by comparison, but we can't do it because politicians are too happy to take a few campaign dollars and enjoy some free filet mignon medallions and expensive red wine than represent the people who elected them.
We'll see, it's not like this service has proved viability yet. As other's have pointed out, this is about twice the price of an hour and 40 minute flight. While some commenters are arguing that there are some folks who would take it to skip the hassle of the airport, I think pretty much the only people who would take this are those with a pretty severe fear of flying.
Plus, the LA-SF routes on the Coast Starlight aren't overnight.
Demand was never the biggest problem.
No major region or state in the US can do high-speed rail as easily or cheaply as Texas and they're still struggling to push through comparably modest roadblocks there. They're looking at more than a decade on a very simple line just from Dallas to Houston. It looks increasingly like the Texas line has a good chance of being constructed. However if it was that difficult for Texas, California can forget about it (unless the Federal Government gets involved and becomes belligerent, which I would favor).
https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/high-speed-rail-proj...
If it were as straight-forward as spending a reasonable sum of money and building the rail, the US would already have numerous prominent high-speed rail routes.
Cabin is an even worse example of HSR demand because it travels when roads are underutilized.
Tokyo - Kyoto/Osaka
As someone that regularly travels between LA and SF, I would rather fly Delta at half the cost and a fraction of the time. Time is money, and it doesn’t make sense to charge more for an 8 hour bus than an hour-ish flight, especially when the majority of travelers would rather get from point A->B as fast as possible.
My expectation would be that they’re more central and less time-consuming than most airports. Then again, my experience with bus stations so far has also been that they’re even less inviting places than most airports and not usually as well connected either.
I don't hate the ride on Amtrak, but it's a hard route to sleep, since it's just a little too short to be worth booking the sleeper (which ends up being about double the rate compared to the bus ride), and sleeping in the open cabin can be a bit of a challenge. That, and the roads are at least capable of allowing for some routing around, unlike Amtrak which frequently hits freight traffic and has a pretty abysmal on-time reputation for the Coast Starlight.
Not all of us are in a rush, and most of us could use a good night of unplugged sleep. Plus it shaves off a night in a hotel, so there's actual savings there too.
It’s clearly got issues, but they don’t need to replace aircraft to be a profitable business.
I think the innovation is that instead of dealing with the hassle of going to the airport, going through security, and sitting in a cramped seat, you just spend a good night's sleep traveling.
Airport to airport it should take maybe 2.5 hours (1 hr before flight + 1.5 for the flight) versus the 5 hr to drive between the two.
For journeys shorter than 400 miles, driving is faster than flying. PLAUSIBLE
The Build Team had a race of 380 miles (610 km) from San Francisco to Los Angeles, between Tory on a plane, and Kari and Grant driving. The bottlenecks of air travel (arriving early to get through security, waiting for the plane to start boarding, retrieving luggage at the destination, and renting a car) delayed Tory significantly. Kari and Grant had fewer such delays, but did have to stop for gas and food at one point, and traffic in and near the larger cities did slow them down. Kari and Grant arrived at their destination after 5h 33m; Tory was slightly faster, at 5h 25m. Because of the close result and variables that could alter the result either way, this myth was declared plausible.
Pretty much the only time I flew was when there was just one of us and I would either need to leave or arrive during rush hour.
But I'm curious, why did you drop off your spouse and then pick her up? Why not go together? Are you really afraid of flying and she's afraid of driving? I'm just trying to imagine a scenario where it makes sense to split up like that.
Cabin is nice because the total time I spend awake (< 30mins at each end) is less than that of taking a flight (at least a 3 hour contiguous block). It's also less stressful not having to worry about luggage, security, when to leave for the airport, etc.
If I couldn't sleep like a rock, or didn't live in Santa Monica, or wanted to go to south bay instead of SF, I would get a flight instead. I agree this is not for everyone, whether it be comfort-wise or location-wise, but I do hope this new tech helps people sleep more peacefully, and that they expand to more locations.
I’m assuming it’s just their target demographic is young single (white?) professional women, but the homogeneity of the marketing images honestly tripped me up a bit.
Edit: on further examination I do see an image with a guy in a red track suit outside of one of their busses, I missed that the first time.
Still, to be honest I think I’d be intimidated to book a trip and be the only male on the bus. Role reversal, I guess :/
A european company did something like this: Busabout. They ran a circuitous route (or two) around W. Europe. You'd buy a 30d pass and hop on/off wherever you wanted. You could continue, back-track, whatever you wanted.
Doubt they had sleepers.
Kinda like the Eurail passes I guess.
> "... Over the course of hundreds of trips, our software has mapped an optimal way to drive for your comfort. Combining this unique dataset with real-time tracking of vehicle stability, speed and location, Cabin Drive instructs each driver how to safely drive for optimal ride quality based on route and road conditions."
Isn't it basically just a straight interstate shot for the vast majority of the trip between SF and LA?
How is 1.6x smoother impossible? Imagine a maglev train has bumps with a peak amplitude of 2 cm. Then 1.6x of that is 3.2 cm. So to be 1.6x smoother they would need their cabin to reduce bumps to -1.2 cm, which is impossible.
The truth is often the inverse of this, such as, “maglev trains are 1.6x bumpier than our bus.” That means that your bus is 62.5% as bumpy as a maglev train, but this doesn’t sound as good to the marketing folks. For any positive metric it is impossible to be more than 100% less than something. Cabin either have people with poor numeracy skills, or they willfully used inaccurate wording to make their bus sound better. It makes me trust the rest of their marketing spiel 1.6x less.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_G9GCpWAcM
Edit: Looks like Bose has sold it to Clearmotion: