Future of transport

[unixman_again]

Of course, the ban on diesel cars and trucks, won't apply to trains. The line I travel on isn't electrified and the trains are old and smokey. Supposedly we're getting new ones but these will be diesel too (Civity class 196, built in Spain).

[mavhc]

Still better than the same number of people in cars, probably better than the same number of people in electric cars too.

 

We give discounts for buying a house, no VAT, no capital gains tax, and less discounts if it's your 2nd house.

 

We give discounts for buying an EV new and electricity (less VAT), and fines for buying petrol/diesel (more tax). Problem is we need to make it illegal to sell new non EV cars, second hand market is reliant on the new car market.

 

Which is why I propose a tax on new non EV cars, £1 per month next month, doubles every month

 

BTW https://pod-point.com/electric-car-news/ev-homecharger-flats-advice

[houlta]

So much for capitalism,

[supportman]

Just got myself a Xiaomi M365 Pro for £300ish on Aliexpress, its got to be the future.

 

My commute is about 3 miles into town and its quicker to use the scooter than a car in the morning.

 

Clean, fast, effortlessness and cheap to run. I fly past traffic jams every day wondering why people sit in them and complain...

 

[houlta]

Are those scooters legal in the UK?

[supportman]

Are those scooters legal in the UK?

 

Technically no, but never had any issue with the police, I go past them all the time.

 

The government are changing the law very soon though, they are consulting at the moment. You can't halt technology!

 

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/e-scooters-regulation-uk

[unixman_again]

Electric scooters are illegal in the UK at the mo, but this might well change. There was a time when electric bicycles were illegal.

 

In Adelaide (where I'm from), they are trialing free electric scooters in the city centre. You unlock it with a phone app and ride it anywhere in the square mile. They've got GPS on so it you take them out of the city centre, they can tell and do something about it. I don't know who charges the scooters up, as they were just sitting on the pavements in many places.

[houlta]

Hmmm I've always liked fully electric (with a throttle) bikes rather than pedal assist, not seen many of them around though and wondered if it was a law/regulation thing preventing it.

There are some electric sit-on scooters that look like mopeds but do 15mph, ridiculously expensive for what they are though, if 2nd hand petrol mopeds are cheaper then they're not going to sell many.

[unixman_again]

There is a bloke in the Black Country who has a DIY electrified Brompton. It's still peddle assist but his batteries are huge (sits in a box on the carrier) and he has a huge range. He uses bafang motors, with 1000W output. I've never seen him use the pedals. He told me he can take it off and fit it to another bike in about 20 mins. I briefly thought about electrifying my Bommie, but I think it wrecks the whole idea of one. Brompton make an electric model (around £2500). I'll stick with my 17 year old original, although if I can raise £600 I'll upgrade it to the new wide range gearing. It cost me £475 when it was new and it was top of the line spec. I think the equivalent now is £1200.

[mikeprice]

I have an ebike - actually I have had one for over 10 years (see ebike thread) and the pedal assist is wonderful

When I worked I used to commute on it when the weather was dry. Main problem was that if it was wet I would get into work with mud spots all over my trousers due to muddy roads - and if it was raining it was pretty much a non starter - the same problems would also apply for escooters.

 

Of course, if you work in a secondary you might well have access to proper changing rooms and maybe even showers - so that may be a solution

 

as far as ebikes are concerned I never had any problems parking my bike in the school bike sheds - but that was my old bike - I would be dubious parking my new £1800 ebike in the same place. If I was still working there I would probably have a word with the site manager and park it somewhere more secure. Of course this is not so much of a problem with an escooter

 

Oh - and the reason why I started this (I know - I tend to waffle!) the legal definition of a legal ebike requires no throttle, max power of 250W and the motor cuts out at 15.5 mph - personally I find that perfectly OK - it ain;t a motorbike!!

[HarryMonkey]

Flexible working is a massive plus for public transport because it distributes the demand over a larger time span

 

problem is - again - when you are not just looking at people like office workers. If you work in a factory then your shift probably ends at the same time as a lot of other people

 

hence a lot of transport is suddenly needed ina small area NOW

 

 

also - going back to bridges - one alternative to raining the bridges to allow for double decker trains is simply to dig down and drop the rails

but it turns out (obviously if you think aboutit) that this is even more complicated and expensive than just knocking the bridge down and building a new one

 

and either solution means closing the whole line for an extended time - in facts digging down closes the line for even longer

 

We've just had a bridge raised to allow for the (partial) electrification of the line (apparently they can't afford to do the whole line). In order to get this done, they have closed the road from June last year until spring this year. An alternative would have been to lower the rails which would have taken around two weeks. However, it was thought to be unfair on the rail commuters to have the inconvenience for two weeks, better to shut the road (producing more traffic queues, rat runs through housing estates etc.) for 10+ months.

 

The mind boggles.

[PlantHead]

We've just had a bridge raised to allow for the (partial) electrification of the line (apparently they can't afford to do the whole line). In order to get this done, they have closed the road from June last year until spring this year. An alternative would have been to lower the rails which would have taken around two weeks. However, it was thought to be unfair on the rail commuters to have the inconvenience for two weeks, better to shut the road (producing more traffic queues, rat runs through housing estates etc.) for 10+ months.

 

The mind boggles.

 

I sort of agree with this though.

Favour the railway and inconvenience the cars to make people change their habits.

It would work better if the railways ran on time of course but I support the theory.

[houlta]

I sort of agree with this though.

Favour the railway and inconvenience the cars to make people change their habits.

It would work better if the railways ran on time of course but I support the theory.

In the UK with its present setup it should never have been privatised. Even Thatcher was against it at the time...I believe the words used were 'a privatisation too far'.

 

It's not just the car drivers who suffer though, if they're taking diversions through housing estates then it's the people who live there too regardless of whether they drive or not.

 

Some outside the box thinking such as offering tax incentives for businesses to employ remote workers and/or locate offices outside cities, offer discount leased fibre connections to rural businesses etc etc. Minimum effort and maximum effect

[Andrew_C]

s and/or locate offices outside cities, offer discount leased fibre connections to rural businesses

This isn't the straightforward win it first appears. Around here, there are several country piles that have been converted into business parks (and indeed IBMs research labs).

 

These do encourage business out of the cities; but the roads are not designed to cope with the traffic, and there is ****-all public transport serving them. Maybe moving out of the BIG cities, to large towns would work...

[localzuk]

This isn't the straightforward win it first appears. Around here, there are several country piles that have been converted into business parks (and indeed IBMs research labs).

These do encourage business out of the cities; but the roads are not designed to cope with the traffic, and there is ****-all public transport serving them. Maybe moving out of the BIG cities, to large towns would work...

I think that's just a thing of scale again. Take Reading - the big companies are all out of town. Microsoft/Oracle etc... but you don't really drive there - you get on their bus service from the train station. They can do this as there is enough business there to fund it. If other areas did similar things, then this would sort what you're talking about out.

 

But, I take your point. I live in a rural area where the main A road narrows to single lane in places. We're going to be struggling when they build the 2000 new homes down here, so more business traffic would be awful. So, it'd definitely need a proper joined up transport plan to implement a business park down here.

Edited February 5, 2020 by localzuk

[mikeprice]

I think that's just a thing of scale again. Take Reading - the big companies are all out of town. Microsoft/Oracle etc... but you don't really drive there - you get on their bus service from the train station. They can do this as there is enough business there to fund it. If other areas did similar things, then this would sort what you're talking about out.

 

That is the sort of thinking that helps

 

as long as there are train stations outside town where people can securely park cars (and charge them if the are electric) and other transport like bikes

 

the problems with a lot of out-of-town business centres that I have come across if that they don;t think this far forward and just build large car parks

 

I have come across a similar system in the past - but it failed to have the predicted effect as the busses only ran for a few hours in the morning and afternoon - fine for those who worked 9-5 - but if you needed to stay and work overtime you spent half what you earned on taxis

and the computer operators couldn;t use it at all as they worked shifts

 

so - good on the companies that think it through - but it does need thinking about carefully and fully from all angles

[elsiegee40]

reminder to steer away from politics

[6Foot2]

reminder to steer away from politics

Self-driving cars can do that too now?

 

[6Foot2]

Link:

[Matt Cartoons Picture Tweet]

 

[Davit2005]

Link:

[Matt Cartoons Picture Tweet]

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]56636[/ATTACH]

 

Judging by the attitude of drivers this should work well

[mavhc]

https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/images/careers/autopilot/network.mp4

[sted]

https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/images/careers/autopilot/network.mp4

 

hey look it ran a stop sign lol

[unixman_again]

I've been watching Impossible Engineering on Yesterday, and the program I watched last night was about Tesla. Very impressive factory. I didn't know much about them as a company, but clearly they are doing something right according to wikipedia. Cars made Q1 2013 - 5000, cars made Q4 2019 - 104,891. I'll never be able to afford one and I'm getting too old anyway. Years ago I made the decision that when I retire, I'll go back to Australia, not buy a car, and get around on a fleet of bicycles - three to be precise

• My trusty Brompton
  
• A decent road bike with gears and thin wheels
  
• A bike with one speed, back pedal brake, racing handle bars upside down, with a Gladstone bag perched on them (you had to grow up in 1960s Australia to know why)
  

[mavhc]

hey look it ran a stop sign lol

 

It did? There are waaaaaaaay too many stop signs in USA, I assume they treat them mostly like Give Way signs

[sted]

It did? There are waaaaaaaay too many stop signs in USA, I assume they treat them mostly like Give Way signs

 

about 7 seconds in it coasted through without actually coming to a halt