LA TIMES: Walt Disney World plans to deploy driverless shuttles

GlacierGlacier

Well-Known Member
Interesting things to note about this that Uber is trying to cover up.

This car only had 1 roof lidar, and none around the perimiter. Their original prototype had 7 lidar around there permeter.

This car had 7 cameras, where the original had 20.

They settled with the family this week for who knows how much but it had to have been huge to get a persons life settled so quickly and quietly.

While this tech may be fine under "laboratory" conditions, we all know people do all kinds of unexpected and crazy things out on the roads. Things that i'm not sure we can program computers to always predict and react accordingly.
The thing is, Uber's tech did absolutely nothing. Every contractor outside of Uber tested their part of the tech - Volvo's city safety stopped the car, the guys who developed the sensor bar stopped the car, everything except for Uber's tech worked (or was on). And these tests weren't even with the actual sensor data, just the grainy video from the car itself. This is not a failure of self-driving tech, it's a failure of Uber as a company.
 

GlacierGlacier

Well-Known Member
FWIW, I don't think the claim is (or ever will be) that driverless cars will eliminate accidents; they will just lessen the number of them. There are scenarios where a human driver would be the safer option, but there are far more where the automated option is the preferable method.
Yup. In jobs, automation doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be better than a human. Same goes for this.
 

mm121

Well-Known Member
The thing is, Uber's tech did absolutely nothing. Every contractor outside of Uber tested their part of the tech - Volvo's city safety stopped the car, the guys who developed the sensor bar stopped the car, everything except for Uber's tech worked (or was on). And these tests weren't even with the actual sensor data, just the grainy video from the car itself. This is not a failure of self-driving tech, it's a failure of Uber as a company.

Thats about what I was saying.

Not sure who at Uber ever thought it was a good idea to go to one lidar sensor. Probably some penny pincher since those arent cheap.

The quest towards self driving vehicles isnt something that should be done with counting pennies in mind, at least not at this stage.

Perfect the tech then work on bringing costs down later.

Just feels like many of these self driving projects are being done in the quest to save labor costs by cutting out drivers instead of having anything to do with wanting to make roads safer.
 

MuteSuperstar

Well-Known Member
Time will tell if people are willing to use them. You could be right... I don't ever see myself using them and I doubt I am the only one.

Same here. The tech evangelists will never be deterred on this obviously, but until they make it prohibitively expensive to drive your own car (which I'm sure is the endgame), I will continue to drive myself. I wouldn't trust the greed-addled clowns at Uber to wash my dishes, never mind this.

In a setting like WDW I can see them eventually working out for some uses. On city streets among the general public....I think it's a long way off from what the evangelists are pushing .
 

GlacierGlacier

Well-Known Member
One thought of Uber's is get rid of drivers and you can rent peoples cars when they aren't using them. You buy an autodrive car and when you don't need it, rent it to Uber who takes care of organizing the whole operation with your car coming back when you need it. That's the idea there. In a theory world it sounds very effective and the green people love that idea. Their next plan is to make them all electric cars because in their minds that's the greenest tech. Again in theory if your power comes from green sources this all makes great sense. If this actually happens you would have far less auto's on the road there fore less infrastructure which is even greener.

I have talked to people who really think this is going to happen over the next 10 years for sure and it's going to save the planet.

First I don't think the planet needs saving. It will be here long after us.

If your power comes from coal you won't change anything.

The batteries are very dirty to make and have a limited life after which they become a environmental hazard. No they can't be recycled, look it up.

No ones power grid could handle charging up a huge fleet of EV's.

Last but not least auto-driving isn't any where near ready to go.

All problems with solutons right around the corner, we put man on the Moon we can do this. The thing is no one said how to get a man to the Moon they just said do it. No one gave NASA specs on their fuel to be used etc. etc.
1. The planet will be here after our generation. It's going to be here for at least the next few. But each generation will have a worse and worse experience and total land shrinks due to rising sea levels, more extreme weather due to increasing global climate, and more pollution wrecking lungs and lives. The best thing anyone can do is to begin improvements that they won't ever see the fruits of.

2. That's why alternative energy is so critical. Coal is slowly becoming less and less important to the world in terms of energy production, solar prices are plummetting, nuclear is becoming safer and cleaner than coal, wind is becoming more efficient, geothermal is getting cheaper, and I wouldn't be surprised if we dropped coal in the US within a century. Also, even with coal production of energy, power plants run at the most efficient point of generation with extra hardware to minimize ecological impact. Cars constantly are accelerating/decelerating, which is incredibly innefficient for chemical fuels.

3. Most batteries used in cars today are some form of Lithium, which isn't particularly rare or impactful when removed from an ecosystem. The lithium core is paired with a copper portion to actually have it store energy. Over time, the copper portion effectively becomes 'clogged' reducing the total energy it can store per charge. These batteries can be then replaced and recycled by simply stripping out the copper, melting that down for other uses, and throwing some more copper on there. It's much cleaner than many people think, and it's only improving.

4. Power grids have consistently been increasing to match modern demand. Think back to the first few scenes of CoP, where a whole block was blown with a few appliances running. Nowadays there's more power being drawn from single homes than what used to be drawn from small towns. And if people draw more power, more money goes to the grid, more money for improving infrastructure. It's cyclical.

5. Yes. It's not ready yet. If there was only self-driving cars on the road it'd be ready. But human drivers like myself are falliable and make mistakes - computers are learning to deal with us. I'd say within a decade it'd be to a point where you won't be surprised to see cars without a steering wheel. It's advancing at an astonishing pace. My mom's car from 4 years ago can keep pace with cars ahead of it, read road signs, keep in the lane and more. My dad's car he bought this year can do all that, do lane changes, automatic parking, and stuff I can't even imagine. And this is just Volvo.

There's so much wonderful technology not only on the Horizon, but here today. Ignoring advancements and current problems can lead to a future world full of even more problems than we have been left with by previous generations. There's a great big beautiful tomorrow, but only if we follow that tomorrow with mind and heart. Then it'll be there for you and me.
 

RunnerEd

Well-Known Member
My thought on the self-driving car thing is this. This year, we have had one fatality caused by this technology. On average (using 2016 numbers from the USDOT), 3,121 fatalities occur on American roads. If it becomes a numbers game and humans kill 30,000+ per year while driverless kill 5,000+, I think I'll take my chances with driverless. At WDW, I hope they have special lanes for them so there is less interaction with regular vehicles.
 

Goofyernmost

Well-Known Member
My thought on the self-driving car thing is this. This year, we have had one fatality caused by this technology. On average (using 2016 numbers from the USDOT), 3,121 fatalities occur on American roads. If it becomes a numbers game and humans kill 30,000+ per year while driverless kill 5,000+, I think I'll take my chances with driverless. At WDW, I hope they have special lanes for them so there is less interaction with regular vehicles.
Are you comparing millions of cars on the road with the 4 or 5 driver-less ones? I'd say the odds of becoming scrambled are a whole lot higher in a driver-less one right now.
 

RunnerEd

Well-Known Member
Are you comparing millions of cars on the road with the 4 or 5 driver-less ones? I'd say the odds of becoming scrambled are a whole lot higher in a driver-less one right now.
No, of course not. The numbers are like predicting the home run and batting title winners in MLB based on the games played last week; There are guys hitting over .600 currently. When the sample size becomes more significant, I think we will have to make a choice of the safest method of transportation. Currently, I trust the Tesla self-drive technology more than I do a texting, drunk or otherwise impaired driver. Not so much with fully engaged humans.
 

Goofyernmost

Well-Known Member
No, of course not. The numbers are like predicting the home run and batting title winners in MLB based on the games played last week; There are guys hitting over .600 currently. When the sample size becomes more significant, I think we will have to make a choice of the safest method of transportation. Currently, I trust the Tesla self-drive technology more than I do a texting, drunk or otherwise impaired driver. Not so much with fully engaged humans.
While I agree with the areas you would trust more then an otherwise engaged human, those that are engaged outnumber the others by a lot. At least, that has been my experience.
 

RunnerEd

Well-Known Member
While I agree with the areas you would trust more then an otherwise engaged human, those that are engaged outnumber the others by a lot. At least, that has been my experience.
Mine as well. I'm not ready to live in the iRobot world just yet but I honestly don't believe that my great grandchildren will ever learn to drive a car. It's coming and will probably be normal in 10 years. WDW is a perfect place to test technology if they can control the roadways.
 

briangaw

Active Member
5. Yes. It's not ready yet. If there was only self-driving cars on the road it'd be ready. But human drivers like myself are falliable and make mistakes - computers are learning to deal with us. I'd say within a decade it'd be to a point where you won't be surprised to see cars without a steering wheel. It's advancing at an astonishing pace. My mom's car from 4 years ago can keep pace with cars ahead of it, read road signs, keep in the lane and more. My dad's car he bought this year can do all that, do lane changes, automatic parking, and stuff I can't even imagine. And this is just Volvo.

There's so much wonderful technology not only on the Horizon, but here today. Ignoring advancements and current problems can lead to a future world full of even more problems than we have been left with by previous generations. There's a great big beautiful tomorrow, but only if we follow that tomorrow with mind and heart. Then it'll be there for you and me.

While I completely agree with the sentiment of tomorrow being bright and that awesome achievements in science and technology happen everyday, I think some real and present challenges need to be discussed that bring down the tint level in the rose colored glasses that I too find myself wearing at times. While I have some issues with 1-4, will focus on 5 as it is the most on topic.

5. The technology is just not ready yet whether there were only self-driving cars on the road or not! That is a fact and even pioneers such as Elon Musk note this. There are road conditions such as fog and certain lighting especially on concrete roads where striping and lane markings become invisible to the current technology. It is amazing the wonder of the human eye paired with the human brain. And there are other hurtles too including car to car communication and others before T5 cars are truly ready. Testing facilities have begun being developed such as SunTrax in Florida to really put all the conditions out there and work out the remaining hurtles. The next jump in technology is the hard one and that is full autonomy, T5, with no human involvement. That is huge. A gigantic reason companies are balking at T3 and T4 is liability and human behavior. Much like this Uber accident and the Tesla one before it, if people feel their car is mostly autonomous they will stop paying attention. And then here is the big one. If a person gets in an accident, they have personal liability unless the non autonomous car or tires etc actually caused it and that is rare now. If an autonomous car gets in an accident and the person driving that T5 auto had turned it on right and did nothing wrong, it is that company producing that car who becomes liable. So even 500 deaths a year and countless nonfatal accidents by an autonomous car for a company could be a big hit to the company's pocket book. Also there is the perception of a new technology and the need to have a much higher standard, as it should. The pace of regulatory change and also the fact that the current US fleet of cars takes about 15 years to turnover (and that is without new technology to scare folks away who just don't like the idea) will slow how this all progresses. The technology out there right now still needs to be actively monitored and it is going to take a little to get to where that is reliably not the case. Actually, our city is getting the first autonomous bus/shuttle route that I know of at least in Florida, but it will still have a driver to monitor it. So it will happen, but I think this 10 year number that is quoted or astonishing pace is a little too rosy a projection. After all Knight Rider came out in 1982 and we still don't have KITT. We have to be a bit more realistic. We may see our first legally T5 driven car all regulatory approved and the driver not facing the road etc. driven by a regular consumer in 5-10 years, but it will be a long time even after that before 10% and 50% of cars in the US are T5 autonomous. And to the topic of the thread, so why would Disney take the risk? There is really no reason at this point. They would still need a driver to monitor per Florida law, so no labor savings. Just doesn't make sense. Yes maybe as a demonstration or cool pilot of one vehicle in employee parking lot so they can say they did it, but nothing wide scale.
 

larryz

I'm Just A Tourist!
Premium Member
While I completely agree with the sentiment of tomorrow being bright and that awesome achievements in science and technology happen everyday, I think some real and present challenges need to be discussed that bring down the tint level in the rose colored glasses that I too find myself wearing at times. While I have some issues with 1-4, will focus on 5 as it is the most on topic.

5. The technology is just not ready yet whether there were only self-driving cars on the road or not! That is a fact and even pioneers such as Elon Musk note this. There are road conditions such as fog and certain lighting especially on concrete roads where striping and lane markings become invisible to the current technology. It is amazing the wonder of the human eye paired with the human brain. And there are other hurtles too including car to car communication and others before T5 cars are truly ready. Testing facilities have begun being developed such as SunTrax in Florida to really put all the conditions out there and work out the remaining hurtles. The next jump in technology is the hard one and that is full autonomy, T5, with no human involvement. That is huge. A gigantic reason companies are balking at T3 and T4 is liability and human behavior. Much like this Uber accident and the Tesla one before it, if people feel their car is mostly autonomous they will stop paying attention. And then here is the big one. If a person gets in an accident, they have personal liability unless the non autonomous car or tires etc actually caused it and that is rare now. If an autonomous car gets in an accident and the person driving that T5 auto had turned it on right and did nothing wrong, it is that company producing that car who becomes liable. So even 500 deaths a year and countless nonfatal accidents by an autonomous car for a company could be a big hit to the company's pocket book. Also there is the perception of a new technology and the need to have a much higher standard, as it should. The pace of regulatory change and also the fact that the current US fleet of cars takes about 15 years to turnover (and that is without new technology to scare folks away who just don't like the idea) will slow how this all progresses. The technology out there right now still needs to be actively monitored and it is going to take a little to get to where that is reliably not the case. Actually, our city is getting the first autonomous bus/shuttle route that I know of at least in Florida, but it will still have a driver to monitor it. So it will happen, but I think this 10 year number that is quoted or astonishing pace is a little too rosy a projection. After all Knight Rider came out in 1982 and we still don't have KITT. We have to be a bit more realistic. We may see our first legally T5 driven car all regulatory approved and the driver not facing the road etc. driven by a regular consumer in 5-10 years, but it will be a long time even after that before 10% and 50% of cars in the US are T5 autonomous. And to the topic of the thread, so why would Disney take the risk? There is really no reason at this point. They would still need a driver to monitor per Florida law, so no labor savings. Just doesn't make sense. Yes maybe as a demonstration or cool pilot of one vehicle in employee parking lot so they can say they did it, but nothing wide scale.
Try driving at night in the rain. Lane markers disappear.
 

briangaw

Active Member
Try driving at night in the rain. Lane markers disappear.

Oh I do often and in certain conditions for the moment the current sensor packages on these vehicles can't beat human eyes. They are so close, but there are some remaining issues they are working. Great thing about Elon Musk he talks about it all the time and is pretty upfront with the issues.
 

_caleb

Well-Known Member
I hope Disney brings in driverless buses on a closed course. They’d essentially work like the automated inter-terminal trains used in airports. Platform-level loading, multiple wide doors, destination-specific buses every two minutes. The benefit over trains/peoplemovers would be that buses could be rerouted if needed. Basically, it would be like getting on the parking tram but boarding from your resort.

The closed course would take pedestrians and other drivers out of the equation.
 

Gringrinngghost

Well-Known Member
Uber is in loads of trouble. They actually disabled Volvo's SUV's Safety System Before Fatality. Both Intel who supplies chips to Aptiv who have worked on the Volvo XC90 stated "that it tested its own software after the crash by playing a video of the Uber incident on a television monitor. Mobileye said it was able to detect Herzberg one second before impact in its internal tests, despite the poor second-hand quality of the video relative to a direct connection to cameras equipped to the car."

Just a quick update to this, as I finally got around to read the NTSB support. It's quite damning for Uber but shows that the system did indeed work, up to the limitations that Uber set. Direct from the NTSB Report:
According to data obtained from the self-driving system, the system first registered radar and LIDAR observations of the pedestrian about 6 seconds before impact, when the vehicle was traveling at 43 mph. As the vehicle and pedestrian paths converged, the self-driving system software classified the pedestrian as an unknown object, as a vehicle, and then as a bicycle with varying expectations of future travel path. At 1.3 seconds before impact, the self-driving system determined that an emergency braking maneuver was needed to mitigate a collision. According to Uber, emergency braking maneuvers are not enabled while the vehicle is under computer control, to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior. The vehicle operator is relied on to intervene and take action. The system is not designed to alert the operator. The self-driving system data showed that the vehicle operator intervened less than a second before impact by engaging the steering wheel. The vehicle speed at impact was 39 mph. The operator began braking less than a second after the impact. The data also showed that all aspects of the self-driving system were operating normally at the time of the crash, and that there were no faults or diagnostic messages.

Long Story Short, Uber is still in loads of trouble as they were testing on an established test route. Uber "relies on an attentive operator to intervene if the system fails to perform appropriately during testing. In addition, the operator is responsible for monitoring diagnostic messages that appear on an interface in the center stack of the vehicle dash and tagging events of interest for subsequent review." However, the vehicle operator is relied on to intervene and take action as the system is not designed to alert the operator. So, the system worked the way it was designed to, even as Uber disabled emergency breaking measures. While that would be common as of right now for an autonomous systems testing, as Dave Jones says in the video below (he did some math at the end to determine emergency breaking time aswell and the estimated speed at collision: "According to Uber emergency braking maneuvers are not enabled while the vehicle is under computer control to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior and there you go uber has basically admitted that when it's in autonomous driving mode they disable emergency braking and this is the big trade-off with autonomous car systems and the things that they're I think all of them are struggling to get right. All makers of autonomous car systems in that you can't just be braking and swerving for every little thing that you detect there's got to be some sort of you know threshold. " So It will be a while before you can see any form of autonomous car systems to be embraced by Disney.

NTSB Report (4 Pages): https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HWY18MH010-prelim.pdf

 

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