Transportation news, curated through an EECS lense. Special interest and emphasis on autonomous vehicles, scalable solutions, cost-efficient transit (e.g. busses), innovations in infrastructure, security, IU/UX, and insights into the behavioral/legal/ethical aspects.
This timelapse from a San Francisco street may change how you see the Google bus 2014-03-23 Commuter Shuttle and 21-Hayes EB Bus Stop Observations from Paul Supawanich on Vimeo. San Francisco does have a real problem: Hundreds of private commuter shuttles move through the city every day, collecting people who work in Silicon Valley but can’t bear the thought of living there (with some ingenious sleuthing, Wired’s Kevin Poulsen just counted 36 ...
Magnetic roads could guide driverless cars 2014-03-21 To guide driverless cars, Volvo Car Group has been experimenting with creating a corridor of magnets that are placed in the pavement. The automaker says magnets are better than GPS or cameras for pointing the way because they are not as easily affected by poor weather. "The magnets create an invisible ‘railway’ that literally paves the ...
Helsinki’s personalized bus service is like Uber for public transit | Grist 2014-03-13 Here’s an innovation in bus usage that’s so smart we’re not sure it can even work: Helsinki’s Kutsuplus lets you select your pick-up and drop-off locations and times, using a phone app, and then sends out a bus to take you exactly where you need to go. You don’t get the bus to yourself, of course; ...
California given deadline on plan to integrate driverless cars onto public roads | Driving 2014-03-13 By the end of the year, the U.S. Department of Motor Vehicles DMV must write rules to regulate autonomous cars Among the complex questions officials sought to unravel: How will the state know the cars are safe? Does a driver even need to be behind the wheel? Can manufacturers mine data from onboard computers to make product ...
Talking robots take control of Kinshasa’s traffic problems — ScienceDaily 2014-02-22 Kinshasa may have found an answer to its traffic problems – robots. So far the DR Congo’s capital has two eight-foot talking androids directing drivers and pedestrians, and the engineer behind the machines is eyeing the global market. via Talking robots take control of Kinshasa's traffic problems — ScienceDaily. $15K (USD) for giant robots that direct traffic, ...
A New Car UI – Matthaeus Krenn 2014-02-21 Several automotive companies have begun replacing traditional controls in their cars with touch screens. Unfortunately, their eagerness to set new trends in hardware, is not matched by their ambition to create innovative software experiences for these new input mechanisms. Instead of embracing new constraints and opportunities, they merely replicate old button layouts and shapes on ...
Google Launches Private SF Bay Ferry Service To Shuttle Workers « CBS San Francisco 2014-01-11 KPIX 5 has learned that Google has contracted with a private firm to provide a catamaran to ferry its workers from San Francisco to Redwood City. The service started Monday and the catamaran – the Triumphant which holds 149 passengers – runs two trips in the morning from San Francisco to Redwood City and two return ...
Image credit: Neil Kremer