Internal Dialogue

A large portion of the vehicles depicted are of the airborne type, which technically is quite feasibly. Currently even cheap helicopters cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars. So we haven’t reached the retro-futuristic view yet.

I wonder why flying cars never became a success. The environmental, economical and technological challenges can be overcome. Safety will be a problem with flying objects, though computers make flying a breeze.

Perhaps there’s little advantage over cars? Cars seem to be the future for now. Even though so much progress has been booked in computer technology, millions and millions of people program for a living and the hardware (Camera/IR/GPS/communications) is widely available: Car’s still can’t drive themselves. In my opinion software is holding back progress towards more futuristic transportation. If I can safely drive a car using some mounted camera’s and a computer, than so can a computer program. The DARPA Grand Challenge demonstrates how far some small teams can get. Traffic congestion can be solved without changing the current infrastructure using some sensors and smart software in cars.

A lot of depicted vehicles don’t seem too far fetched from reality, especially the trains. Also, I adore this plane, it’s brilliant.

Yes, you’re right: there is a very important distinction when it comes to visions. In one hand you have the visions that for the time being are out of reach (mostly the space exploration, especially the FTL stuff which right now is just pure fiction). But in the other you have new ideas that are technically feasible, but not politically or economically.

Though when it comes to vehicles, there is also another distinction to be made: the visions that just deal with the aesthetic aspects, and those that deal with technological advancements like traffic control. I enjoy both facets in this branch of futurism, though I must admit that I’m a sucker for all these retro images of streamlined cars, trains and planes. I’ve also read/got some books with futuristic images, and I just love the ones that depict urban situations and future transportation. I love images like this.

As far as flying cars go: I think there still isn’t anything that comes close to a good showcase of a flying car that both relatively cheap and practical. Even if you get the technology sorted, our society is simply not built for everyone flying around. Many things would have to change. The general public is better off staying on the ground. Even if it was feasible, flying cars would have a hard time getting (politically) accepted.

And traffic control: yes, it’s doable. These visions often depict the best possible situation: an infrastructure that has been built with these things in mind. Unfortunately, once we adopt a certain technology and implement it, it’s very hard to just move on to the next best thing when it comes along. Look at maglev trains: the adoption rate is so extremely slow because it’s not compatible with our current infrastructure. We as a society invest in technologies that have existed for twenty, thirty years, simply because it’s the only feasible option.

It’s the same with cars and traffic control: in an ideal situation, every road would have been built with this in mind. There would be sensors everywhere, special slow lanes, fast lanes, etc. But if we’re going to implement it today, we’d have to make do with what we have. I think it’s actually more challenging to do it this way. But you’re right: it’s far from impossible. It has been proven many times over that by using GPS, cameras, sensors and smart software, cars can drive themselves.

But this is obviously still adjusting cars to the environment. In an ideal situation, it would be the other way around: the environment would be compatible with the cars. It would be great if it becomes widespread, but I still regard it as an quick and dirty solution. In an ideal situation, the cars would ‘talk’ to other cars or through an intermediary traffic control system. But that won’t be possible unless everyone adopts the same system at exactly the same time. Until then you need to create a car that can operate on its own. It would need a lot of bloat to function, while in an ideal situation it would be much more simple.

So even though the vehicles depicted in these visions might not seem so far fetched, the entire scene is. You never see cameras mounted on these cars, because ideally, that’s not what you want to see. At least, that’s how I see it. Nevertheless, I agree that much more attention should be paid to creating cars that can drive themselves. A quick and dirty solution is much better than having nothing at all.

Except that “quick and dirty” is currently more like “slow and dirty”. Like you said new technology should be compatible with the current infrastructure. The technology after that as well and so on; a continuous development cycle. But the cycle hasn’t started yet: nothing is happening. People still drive their own cars.

Road infrastructure has a huge advantage over rail infrastructure: you can go anywhere and can choose a wide variety of propulsion methods. You might want to integrate sensors into the major road network, but not every land road. So cars should still be able to drive without sensors in the road. When a central communication controls traffics flow than sensors in the cars should still be used because trees fall down, kids play and deers cross.

Besides, I don’t see what’s “dirty” about this method. Technology keeps developing. As long there is progress no situation is ideal and every situation might be tagged “dirty”.

You’re right you don’t see any camera’s mounted on the futuristic cars. But you don’t see them on existing cars that do have camera’s either. These are usually mounted behind the front grill. The park sensors and rear camera’s are hardly noticeable as well.

The only thing missing to switch to driverless cars is some proper software. The car manufacturers affected by the crisis should all go bankrupt. You can buy a proper TomTom for EUR 100,- while incar GPS systems are still overly expensive and crappy. They are hopeless in innovation. For decades billions have been spent on buying cars, and all they have to show for are toys like parking sensors?

Having cars depend on external input(s) for their operation, seems very dangerous to me.

Hmm yes, it would be a bit unsafe if the car relied solely on external input. Ivan also already pointed out that you can’t have sensors and stuff everywhere on Earth. But perhaps you even mean that, even in general, cars shouldn’t rely on external input because it could be hacked/abused/whatnot.

Though I wonder if it’s really going to improve anything if the cars *don’t* directly or indirectly talk to each other. If every car has cameras/sensors and software that enabled it to drive itself, we would only be replacing the drivers. Certain situations might become a little safer, but it won’t really improve traffic control. Each car is still an individual, whether there is a person or a computer behind the wheel. The advantage of a computer is that it can talk to other cars, that it can anticipate where others will be going so it doesn’t have to go around then, slow down, etc.

If we just mount cameras on every car and let individual computers drive them, they cars would still behave as individuals. I really don’t think there would be any improvement in areas like congestion/traffic control or even safety. Perhaps there’ll be a lot less accidents, but they’ll obviously still happen because individually, a computer will be less perfect than it could be if it communicated with everything else on the road.

I don’t see much use to anticipating what another car is going to do, when a computer is already in control. The computer would already be continuously checking its distance and speed relative to other cars, and act almost instantly.

Adaptive navigation systems and traffic control that rely on central dispatch mechanisms that in turn rely on trusted sensors, seem more likely to me. The coordination would be more of a global nature, managing congestions and distribution of traffic. There is always risk of attempts to sabotage the network, but it would be harder and have little serious impact. The adaptive control is already partly in effect, but its application could become more widespread. I don’t think the navigation systems of cars already take cues from the central traffic monitoring.

I do think it’s very important for a traffic control system (or each individual car) to know what each car is doing and where it is going.

Imagine a big interstate with many on and off ramps during rush hour. It’s really not going to matter if there’s a person or computer behind the wheel if they’re acting as individuals. If the cars behind / in front of you already know that you’re taking the an exit, they can change lanes or make sure things go as smoothly as possible. And this is just one car. Imagine thousands of cars all doing their own thing. If the traffic control system (or the car) knew where its fellow cars were going, it could communicate with them to make things go as smoothly as possible.

Sure, a computer could act instantly, but what use is it if it doesn’t know what that car in front is going to do? You’d need a hell of a lot of programming to make the car smart enough to anticipate every possible move and choose the one most likely. It might cause a lot less fatalities because computers can respond quicker than humans, but it’s not going to improve traffic congestion. I’m sure it’s possible to have each car drive itself, but that’s not the point.

Communication is the key to improving traffic control.