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Comment by antithesis-nl | Hacker News Reader

Well, self-driving buses are definitely more likely to happen than self-driving general-purpose vehicles (due to buses already having predefined routes and often dedicated infrastructure), but which problem are we trying to solve here, exactly?

"Bus driver" is not exactly a high-paying job, yet one that is important for social cohesion: passenger safety and informal surveillance of roads and neighborhoods sure are crucial!

When it comes to anything 'self-driving', the main goal should be to reduce road traffic and neighborhood pollution-by-parking-spaces. This does nothing for either purpose.

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> "Bus driver" is not exactly a high-paying job

In my city, 70% of the operating budget is labor.

> passenger safety

An excellent way to ensure passenger safety is not to share an enclosed space with someone dangerous.

> When it comes to anything 'self-driving', the main goals should be to reduce road traffic and neighborhood pollution-by-parking-spaces.

When it comes to transportation systems, the goals should be: safety, utility, reliability, convenience, speed, flexibility, efficiency, environmental impact (pollution, noise, etc.).

> In my city, 70% of the operating budget is labor

Link? Because, well, your city is certainly special! Unless, like, you group things like 'pension liabilities', and 'insurance involving personnel' under 'labor', which is... creative but not accurate.

"Labor" $1.3 billion of $1.8 billion budget:

https://www.civicfed.org/civic-federation/blog/cta%E2%80%99s...

You should probably know that "Labor" includes a hell of a lot more than drivers though. That's, at minimum, the tiremen to the body guys to the mechanics that maintain the busses. That's the electricians, the carpenters, the plumbers, that maintain the shop(s). That's the planners (that dictate "X bus will be due for an oil change this day, we need to make sure it's here"), the office administrators, the shop supervisors, the road supervisors.

Paying the bus drivers does not account for 70% of the budget, I assure you.

Absolutely. Having so many drivers, and so much custom hardware, leads to a cascade of additional employees and expense for legacy transit systems. A transit system (self-driving cars) oriented around driverless vehicles and very lightweight support infrastructure (distributed charging, cleaning, repairs) can be much more cost efficient and agile.

I mean sure, drivers need support, but getting rid of drivers increases the support requirements. Drivers perform the legally-required pre-trip every time they leave the yard. This finds things that must be fixed. The coach will then spend 12-28 hours on the road (across multiple drivers), with a driver making sure anything that feels off gets reported.

I've dealt with self-reporting systems in this area, and I do not have the words to tell you how much less I trust self-reporting than an 8 hour test-drive by someone that knows the bus.

This skips over all the local police's missing person reports that show up for every driver that can help. Completely unrelated to the job of driving - but when it's my kid that doesn't come home, arguably more important to me.

Drivers are sticking around, and I think a lot of people are confused about how much they do to keep things running

>> An excellent way to ensure passenger safety is not to share an enclosed space with someone dangerous.

US citizen? Can I ask, why is it that US citizens are so worried about dangerous people in public transport? Is it a rational concern or is it more of a -no offecne meant- preconceived idea? Is it something that's evenly geographically distributed or something you find more in certain places than others?

I'm asking honestly and curiously and hoping more to clear up my own preconceptions than to enforce them. I do find it strange; because I use public transport basically all the time (I don't own a car). I live in the UK and some years I commuted daily by train to work and back. Otherwise I take the bus when I have far to go. I have consistently traveled between the UK and Greece by train and ferry boat for some 15 years now. I've never felt that I was in any kind of danger, although to be fair some times the London trains can be a bit of a pain in the ass on a Saturday night (too many drunken brits, but they're mostly harmless, and really just rowdy).

I've been on some pretty wild lines too. For a few years me and a friend would take the night train from Paris to Venice, and back on the return. That's a sleeper train with six-person cabins. We rode it on through the years of increasing immigration waves from Africa through Italy to the North of Europe, so I've traveled with people with ... varied life histories for sure. Still, all this time, me and my friend's most memorable experience remains the time a Chinese gentleman was asked to open his luggage by border guards in Switzerland, at which point everyone in the compartment (and possibly the ones next door) was very clearly able to smell the large fresh fish he was carrying in his bag. They took him off the train because he didn't have papers. For himself, not the fish. I hope he reached his destination. I bet everyone would have been eager to fast-track him along.

I mean, it's not the boring safety of sitting in your car but it's not dangerous. Only interesting. And the night train, when it careens through the Alps you're like a baby in the cradle, swaying gently and lulled by the sound of the rails. I miss that train. I think the company went bankrupt during the pandemic and they don't run anymore. That has complicated me and my friend's travel quite a bit in the last few years.

So I have good experiences of public transit. What's the problem with US public transport? Why are people so worried about it?

> US citizen?

Yes. I understand that there is some enforcement on trains in Europe that you be a paying passenger. In metro trains in the US this is less common or non-existent. Because of the US inability to deal with drug, mental-health, and homelessness issues, public transit often ends up being shelter for a lot of people who have nothing to lose. The risk of being murdered is low, but the risk of an unnecessarily unpleasant experience is high: begging, harassment, groping, smoke-filled train cars, food scraps, having someone spit in your face, urine, vomit, and feces are stories every commuter has. Inter-city trains are generally fine.

Thanks for answering!

There is enforcement in Europe, more or less depending on where you are. In the UK it's not unknown or even not uncommon for homeless folks to board busses or trains and maybe taking a nap (or a good night's sleep) instead of sitting outside and freezing. In the UK and in Greece beggars are also a common occurrence.

>> The risk of being murdered is low, but the risk of an unnecessarily unpleasant experience is high: begging, harassment, groping, smoke-filled train cars, food scraps, having someone spit in your face, urine, vomit, and feces are stories every commuter has. Inter-city trains are generally fine.

That certainly sounds extremely unpleasant. What I'm trying to understand is how high is the risk, really, and whether it is higher in some cities than others. I mean because I still can't imagine public transport where people will spit in your face in the bus or in the train. Although I've seen people getting sick (and then jumping off at the next stop, bastards) on London busses. In London, being puked on of a night out is a real risk but then it's nothing to do with public transport.

Anyway, how high is the risk of such unpleasant experiences in the U? Why is it that way?

"informal surveillance of roads" - doubt

Really? "There's a blown-down tree here"... "Someone ran into this lamp post"... "This traffic sign has been vandalized"... "There's someone parked on the grass"...

That's all without value?

i just do not think bus drivers where i live are doing that except maybe for the tree - you live in the US?

Nope. Does my HN user name give any hints? Over here, bus drivers (and taxi drivers, ironically, despite being not exactly being law-abiding-as-a-class) account for, like, two thirds of all non-urgent-law-enforcement calls.

If you think surveillance is valuable, you should love 360 video recorded by self-driving vehicles which travel all streets in a city, not just fixed routes.

Yeah, I think surveillance is valuable.

Do you think 'surveillance' is always bad? Like: nobody should mention the tree blocking the road, because, well... the implications?

no pretty sure their point is entirely earnest that cameras would be better for the articulated goals

> Do you think 'surveillance' is always bad?

No. I would love for there to be many times more traffic cameras and license plate readers. Video-footage from self-driving vehicles could go a long way to getting dangerous drivers off of the road.

Sorry to burst your bubble in that case, but "getting dangerous drivers off the road" isn't going to happen.

Actual case study, maybe slightly summarized an exaggerated:

-Prosecution: here is a video of Defendant repeatedly running over several pedestrians

-Defense: it was late at night, visibility was really low, and, besides, my client was very drunk. And they really, really need their car and license for their job! They would be ruined otherwise!

-Judge: well, good points, are we missing something here?

-Prosecution: They. Ran. Over. Several. Pedestrians. Forwards, then backwards!

-Judge: yeah, OK, sure, they should cover the immediate medical costs for those unfortunate bystanders, but other than that I order a safe-driving course, 12 months of alcohol interlock and 36 months of suspended license revocation that nobody will care about, ever. Next case!

I am routinely furious where negligent drivers are let off with an "oopsie"[1]. But signs are encouraging that dashcams are already catching all types of criminality[2] that would have not been prosecuted before.

[1] https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170126/old-town/ryne-san-h...

[2] https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/nyc-c...

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