Talk:Automated highway system

Catch 22
This does not seem like an example of a "chicken and egg" problem. Rather it is an example of a "Catch-22" situation. "Chicken and egg" refers to a situation where the genesis is unknown. In this case it is known. "Catch-22," on the other hand, applies here perfectly,


 * Well, the chicken and egg problem is a Catch 22 situation, so... --67.172.99.160 02:50, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Anyway, I think this sounds cool. Just stick some stuff in your car, then plop some on the road, and boom, you got AHS... --67.172.99.160 02:52, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Not cool, not quite ! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 162.42.84.163 (talk • contribs). 15:40, 1 July 2006

Suggested Evolution of Manually Driven Autos into Automated Autos
NO CATCH-22 involved at all : Just good planning and good engineering.

1. Passive highway - Manual autos : No Auto-autos;

2. Slightly active highway (Speed cameras, etc) - Manual autos : No Auto-autos;

3. More highway activeness - Manual autos with assist (Anti-lock, etc); No Auto-autos;

4. Yet more highway activeness(#) - Manual autos with more assist (Auto-Lock, Stability Control, etc, etc : Few Auto-autos, but growing;

5. Highway activeness levels-off (#) - Manual autos declining numbers : Parity with Auto-autos;

6. Highway activeness declines(#) - Few manual autos : Majority Auto-autos;

7. Minimal highway activness(#) - Virtually no manual autos : Almost all Auto-autos.

(#) No special highway infrastructure is to be required for auto-autos.

Comment on organization
For what it's worth this article seems to be written a little strangely. It is unclear whether the article is talking about the general concept of automated highways or a specific technology. The way it is written sounds pretty ambiguous in this regard. It looks to me like the intent was to discuss the general concept and then get into some specific technologies and deployments used to implement the concept. But in the "How It Works" section it seems to be mentioning some specific details (specific to the San Diego experiment I believe) which are not necessarily part of the concept (e.g. the number of cars that are in a platoon is an implementation-specific detail. In other words, if an implementation used more or less cars in a platoon that would not mean it was not an "automated highway").

I'd recommend reorganizing to be clear exactly what is being discussed. --Mcorazao 19:38, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Agree, except
I agree with this comment EXCEPT that I do not think that a successful automated transportation system can reasonably be expected to involve "automated highways". They are unnecessary and would be anyway too expensive to build and maintain.

The streets and highways need to remain substantially as they are today (with the exception of the removal of the very many obvious hazards which are allowed to exist). The real job is to automate the vehicles, to completely replace the human operator, much as many airplanes operate to a significant degree today.

There will be some broad overall central supervision in order to regulate traffic flow efficiently, especially around highway faults and during rush hours -- but the moment-to-moment details and the origin-to-destination planning and routing need to be completely in the hands of a highly autonomous machine operator -- by the way, that operator is a TRUE robot, made so by being highly autonomous.

The evolution of our existing personal transport system into an automated vehicle system is described in a paragraph just above.

Merge with Car-Trains and Platoon (automobile)
Several articles seem to be dealing with the same concept here. I would suggest redirecting from this one (the name suggests a focus on an intelligent infrastructure whereas car-trains don't necessarily need to rely on external control) and merge to make Car-Trains the main article. Automated highways could be a subsection of that article. Anyone want to discuss this? Is it a good idea, and how should we structure it after a merger? Swooch (talk) 12:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. Car-trains is already dead and unlamented; AHS should become the first section of Platoon (automobile) at first as a rough paste, and then we figure how to smooth out the joints.  Jim.henderson (talk) 01:22, 16 December 2010 (UTC)