You've got to be kidding. That's mighty uncomfortable when the angle is only a bit steep, the inclined lanes would be exclusive to expensive cars with this kind of capability (which no tax payer will want to subsidise), and when there's a traffic jam that takes a minute longer than your battery capacity, your car will just fall on top of another?
replyThe biggest hurdle might be if the public would be tolerant of such extreme angles. It would feel like a slow roller coaster.
replyYeah I was thinking it would suck for a passenger which is why it would only be useful for temporary bypass situations, since tunnels can clog up if cars fail. But that's a lot of engineering just for that one usecase. But I do except tunnels to become much more popular as cities become more dense and cars become automated.
replyIf we’re going to have a network of underground tunnels in a city, wouldn’t it make more to fill them with subway trains, rather than thousands of autonomous cars?
replyI don't spend much time thinking about transit but I believe the dynamics of it will change dramatically when ever car is self-driving and whether western city governments finally allow the sort of building density and pace that is in demand.
replyI don't see much difference between a more affordable autonomous bus or van option vs a subway. The benefit will eventually be access to the tunnels more than the fact it's large and on a track. But in cities it's also incredibly expensive to build anything without a hundred stakeholders interfering so a large amount of new tunnels is probably DOA just like most high speed rail projects have been.