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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

It's been done for trains. But they're already down to one person for a huge train, so the payoff isn't huge.

And that one driver now carries all the responsibility. To automate them out, you need 100% accuracy which closes in on impossible to achieve. Any lack of perfection would be down to the automator. So it's a very scary piece to take on when there's no human in the loop left to hold the bag when something goes wrong.

Computers are more accurate than humans in a number of the things that matter for trains.

As the other poster said, the main need for humans is to fix mechanical problems. If the door jams, unjam it (why can't passengers use a different door or figure out how to unjam it>) If someone is having a heart attack do CPR until medical crew arrives, then stop the train until the medical crew is off (central dispatch can teach anyone CPR over the phone and stop the train). If someone is attacked - stop the the attack (unless you are a trained police office you will probably make the situation worse trying to stop an attack)

In short there actually isn't that much that a human can do that a computer cannot do better.

> In short there actually isn't that much that a human can do that a computer cannot do better.

Passengers fixing their own doors and responding to their own emergency alarms doesn't fit most people's definitions of "better". Hence why even though train automation has been possible for decades, most trains and especially most trains travelling long distances aren't.

> To automate them out, you need 100% accuracy which closes in on impossible to achieve.

I don't follow. As Animats indicated, there are already plenty of autonomous trains that work fine.

Those are usually "closed" systems, that don't have to deal with unpredictable events that often.

And in non closed systems the set of problems that prevent fully autonomous cars is the same set of problems that prevens fully autonomous trains, ie, recognizing shit getting into the lane of travel but not panic braking for random trash.

If there is something on the track the only option is hitting it. You cannot switch track (even if there is a switch on the tracks, it can't safely operate in time) You can hit the brakes, but your braking distance is so long that you won't be able to slow down much before you hit it.

I have talked to somebody in the SBB R&D department recently about this and the problem is actually that there has to be at least one person on the train.

Imagine a door gets jammed or there are some problematic passengers. If there is someone on board they can fix the problem in a couple minutes. But on a completely automated train there is no one on board to fix the problem. One solution would be that you send out crews to arrive at smaller stations and fix the issue, and larger stations could have dedicated people, but that is already more investment and less efficient than just having someone on board.

Retrofitting automation for a train network in a wealthy country like Switzerland wouldn’t be a big problem, but it just makes more sense to leave the driver in there. Accordingly, SBB is investing much more into driver augmentation to help the drivers drive as efficiently, safely, and consistently as possible.

> It's been done for trains

Has it been done on anything more complex than 100% underground subway line with the train just going back and forth?

Yes, the DLR in London has goes overground and has run without drivers since the 80s.

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