Heathrow gets driverless car of tomorrow, today
Screw Fast Company for calling Heathrow Airport's new driverless taxis "creepy." They are in fact awesome: fast, immune to accidents and traffic jams, and using much thinner roads. And driverless, so you don't have to spend 15 minutes agreeing with the cabbie's opinions regarding immigration.
The four-passenger personal rapid transport (PRT) vehicles, unveiled this week at the Science Museum in London, take airport-goers on a special narrow road from Heathrow's Terminal 5 to various parking lots. Passengers use a touch screen to type in their destination, press a start button, and the battery-powered vehicle zips along at 25 mph to their destination. There's a reason the pods look so futuristic--they were designed by Mark Lowson, who worked on the Saturn Rocket that launched Apollo missions.
Now, how about some Total Recall quotes, people?
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Mattyoung on Heathrow gets driverless car o...
"Don't need the concrete guideways. I can buy a podcar today that will drive aro..."
muteboy on Heathrow gets driverless car o...
"How about some "PRT is an unscaleable mass transit dead end" quotes instead?..."
Dorkomatic on Heathrow gets driverless car o...
"It's a shame Cardiff City Council chickened out of the project. It would have b..."
monstrinho_do_biscoito on Heathrow gets driverless car o...
"they really need to sort out a whole bucketload of shitness over at heathrow bef..."
Bugs on Heathrow gets driverless car o...
"There's some more information in this old (2007!) <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk..."
wrybread on Heathrow gets driverless car o...
"Another vote for Semiotix...."
rufustfyrfly on Heathrow gets driverless car o...
"How long until we have our first driverless road-rage incident? Will this be th..."
LCarpio on Heathrow gets driverless car o...
"Or, as I'm sure Doctorow would have pointed out, much like the public transport ..."
dfbecker on Heathrow gets driverless car o...
""Where am I?" "You're in a Johnny Cab!" "How did I get here?" "The door opened, ..."
tomchaps on Heathrow gets driverless car o...
"Wow, has anyone else read Bruno Latour's Artemis: Or, Love of Technology? It's ..."
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phisrow
#1 – 12:09 PM August 17, 2009
I think it indicates something when it is taken for granted that a device's futuristic look can be explained by noting that the designer worked on a project in the 60's.
The future isn't what it used to be, apparently.
Blue
#2 – 12:11 PM August 17, 2009
That thing is beautiful - it looks like a squat alien caterpillar.
Clay
#3 – 12:56 PM August 17, 2009
Ah, PRT.
This is the only tech that stands to ultimately save us from our vast over-investment in road infrastructure.
semiotix
#4 – 12:59 PM August 17, 2009
They should program in some politically extreme small talk just for verisimilitude.
"GREETINGS HUMAN. COMMENCING SCAN.
"I AM PLEASED TO SEE YOU ARE A MALE PIGMENT-DEFICIENT HUMAN. NOT THAT MY PROGRAMMING IS BIASED IN ANY WAY, BUT SOME OF THESE HUMAN FEMALES OR PIGMENT-POSITIVE HUMANS, LET ME TELL YOU. DO YOU CONCUR (Y/N)?"
TJ S
#5 – 1:18 PM August 17, 2009
SEMIOTIX wins the thread.
flipcloud
#6 – 2:02 PM August 17, 2009
Baby, you make me wish I had 3 hands!
Halloween Jack
#7 – 2:05 PM August 17, 2009
I don't know what FC's problem is--if these things need a special road, it's virtually the same thing as the monorails that lots of other airports have. (In other news, Fast Company is still around.)
tomchaps
#8 – 3:02 PM August 17, 2009
Wow, has anyone else read Bruno Latour's Artemis: Or, Love of Technology? It's an overtheorized look at how a French "personal" train system much like this was designed and abandoned in the 1980s.
Huh, someone in London must have read it...
dfbecker
#9 – 4:41 PM August 17, 2009
"Where am I?"
"You're in a Johnny Cab!"
"How did I get here?"
"The door opened, and you got in."
And. Um. "Get you ass to Mahhhs."
LCarpio
#10 – 6:00 PM August 17, 2009
Or, as I'm sure Doctorow would have pointed out, much like the public transport in Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge.
rufustfyrfly
#11 – 6:36 PM August 17, 2009
How long until we have our first driverless road-rage incident? Will this be the invention that teaches the machines to feel anger?
wrybread
#12 – 6:52 PM August 17, 2009
Another vote for Semiotix.
Bugs
#13 – 4:21 AM August 18, 2009
There's some more information in this old (2007!) BBC news article.
The pods - "Personal rapid transport systems" - are made by this company, who have some specs and videos of the pods running on a test track they built near Cardiff.
Oh, and semiotix wins BoingBoing for today.
monstrinho_do_biscoito
#14 – 9:49 AM August 18, 2009
they really need to sort out a whole bucketload of shitness over at heathrow before they introduce shiny new things. Place is a hole. one of the most horrible, squat, dirty airports i have ever been in.
Dorkomatic
#15 – 6:37 AM August 19, 2009
It's a shame Cardiff City Council chickened out of the project. It would have been an awesome addition to our public transport (transit) systems.
Cardiff's great, but sometimes we fail miserably.
muteboy
#16 – 10:01 AM August 19, 2009
How about some "PRT is an unscaleable mass transit dead end" quotes instead?
Mattyoung
#17 – 10:19 AM August 19, 2009
Don't need the concrete guideways. I can buy a podcar today that will drive around my neighborhood, but the local DMV won't grant a robot driving privileges.