From: ems@michael.apple.com (E. Michael Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Computer controlled cars (was re: high-tech highways)
Date: 24 Jul 92 21:08:36 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA

In article <4585@balrog.ctron.com> smith@ctron.com writes:
>In article <1992Jul24.042401.23718@pta.pyramid.com.au>, bgg@pta.pyramid.com.au (Ben Golding) writes:
>>But the commercial airlines are just mass transit, and a very
>>successful successful transit system it is too.  The posters that
>>continually assert that the American public doesn't like mass transit
>>seems to forget this.

Excuse me?  You seem to think I LIKE airlines.  Not so.  I TOLERATE them
since there are few alternatives.  I would rather have a private pilots
licence, but the FAA and airline industry (along with the crazy liability
maze out legal system has built) succeeded in making private planes a 
dying industry in the last few decades.  

BTW, most of my vacation travel has been by car.  Notice that gasoline
prices rise (sometimes dramatically) in early summer due to the 'driving
season' arriving ...  It would seem that a very large number of Americans
prefer to drive on their vacations rather than fly ...

Every year we have a family ritual.  Figure out where we want to go on
vacation.  Cost air travel.  Cost trains.  Cost the car.  Plan a car trip.
Planes don't make sense for us for any distance under 2,000 miles.

>When I can hop a 757 to get to work every day, THEN you can call the airlines
>mass transit.  

I think airlines do qualify as Mass Transit.  They have all the attributes.
Expensive.  Hard to get to.  Run on schedules that are often a pain.
Intractible beaurocracies are needed to control and regulate them, to 
the inevitable detriment of the passengers.  People are herded together
into crowds where they have no control of their environment and are exposed
to all manner of preditors (witness the non-smokers vs smokers conflict
and the 'rent a headset' scam.  Not to mention the $2/coke drink stands...)
The passenger is expected to wait for extraordinary lengths of time with no
compensation, and if you don't like it, tough.  Oh yeah, and the costs
are staggering...  and they are not reliable ... (I've got several
'war strories' about visiting states that were not on my travel plans
and ariving at different airports than my luggage and ... but I'll save 
you the details.  Just ask any of your friends, they have similar 
stories, I'm sure.  ;-)

Yup, sounds like mass transit to me.

>Until then, they are not, they are merely a transit system that
>carries a massive number of passengers, but it cannot do so within normal
>commuting distances in a cost effective manner and it is quite out of the
>questions when talking about such systems.  As a system for transporting
>"business" men for "business" reasons, it works very well, but that's as far
>as it goes.

It also carries alot of vacation travelers.  If it wasn't for oceans and
the speed advantage of 600 mph, airlines would be much less used ...

>Far more arguably than the anti-car fanatics would care to admit, one could
>claim the airlines are a total luxury.  Aside from the weird cultural imper-
>ative to deal "face-to-face" there is nothing that happens in business dealings
>that cannot be handled by modern communication methods.  It wouldn't even
>require major management changes as telecommuting would.

Not so.  A video link with a mobile camera and camera operator is a 
very expensive proposition if you want to run it 10 hours a day...

As bad as air travel is, video 'travel' isn't much of an improvement.

We have vidio conferencing, and it works for many kinds of short meetings.
It is lousy for building personal relationships (if you think THAT isn't
important in business you won't go far...) but works well once the 
relationship has been built.  It doesn't replace the face-to-face
meeting in all cases.  

We did some telecommuting costing and found that for many of our people
we got costs of $10-$40/hour for the telecommunications costs!  Tell me
again why I want to save the $5 commuting cost by spending $100/day?

The same logic holds for teleconferencing.  The details change, but the
basic idea is the same.  For a couple of hundred bucks I can put a person
'on the ground' a few hundred/thousand miles away (with all the advantages
that entails {you have a much harder time 'turning off' someone who is
right in your face ...and reading body language is easier and ...).  To
do this by teleconferencing costs a bundle for the equipment (which 
usually can't go out and wander around the shop to see what things look
like...) and has SIGNIFICANT charge rates for the hourly usage...

I'd turn this around and state instead:  If it wasn't for the 
extraordinary costs imposed by being a 'mass transit' system
(both dollar costs and personal wear and tear outlined above)
teleconferencing wouldn't have a chance.

It is just barely cost effective for some uses today.  It will be
more effective in the future (as virtual reality technology works
it's way into the field) and more cost effective as bandwidth costs
drop.  But that is the future, this is now.

BOTH of them pale in comparison to the cost of a $1000 day specialist.
I'll pay the travel costs without blinking before I'll waste a day of
time at that rate ...

-- 

E. Michael Smith  ems@apple.COM

'Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has
 genius, power and magic in it.'  -  Goethe

I am not responsible nor is anyone else.  Everything is disclaimed.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.electronics,rec.autos.tech