MARTA Upgrades (Atlanta, Berlin: vs, residential, vehicle)

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by cqholt

That's not how local government works. First there must be RFB, then RFP, etc. Then maintenance staff has to look for additional training for the new technology.
How would E-buses be any different from our new fleet of CNG for last mile connection? If the routes are still windy and long headways, few demand riders will ride.

Why does local government have to work at a snail's pace.

That brings to mind the way Trump handled the ice skating rink in New York. The government messed around for years spending millions and then Trump got involved and completed the project in four months for a fraction of the cost.

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Why does local government have to work at a snail's pace.

That brings to mind the way Trump handled the ice skating rink in New York. The government messed around for years spending millions and then Trump got involved and completed the project in four months for a fraction of the cost.

He also stalls out things when they benefit him, like drawing out litigation to try and starve out the little guy who Trump screwed over in his business dealings.

Point is, Trump aint an example of what we want in this case.


The reason we can't just buy 100 of them right now, is that it doesn't allow for any time to see how they will work in the long run. Are there better options with other companies? Is there some quirk of the bus design that would require large changes to the maintenance facilities? Can we use current maintenance staff? Do we need the catenary, or can we make due with something else? Etc.

There are piles of questions that need to be answered and studied and extrapolated to make sure the 25-year lives of the buses make sense and is a good investment. Same thing happened with the articulated buses, and the double-decker buses.

After all, this is the second electric bus that MARTA has tested that I know of.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by fourthwarden

The reason we can't just buy 100 of them right now, is that it doesn't allow for any time to see how they will work in the long run. Are there better options with other companies? Is there some quirk of the bus design that would require large changes to the maintenance facilities? Can we use current maintenance staff? Do we need the catenary, or can we make due with something else? Etc.

There are piles of questions that need to be answered and studied and extrapolated to make sure the 25-year lives of the buses make sense and is a good investment. Same thing happened with the articulated buses, and the double-decker buses.

After all, this is the second electric bus that MARTA has tested that I know of.

If you told the electric bus company that you were thinking about buying 100 of them but you needed some fast and detailed information on how well they'd perform, I bet they'd get you half a dozen shiny sample buses by the end of this month. Along with technical advisors, manuals, tools, chargers and everything else you might need.

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by arjay57

If you told the electric bus company that you were thinking about buying 100 of them but you needed some fast and detailed information on how well they'd perform, I bet they'd get you half a dozen shiny sample buses by the end of this month. Along with technical advisors, manuals, tools, chargers and everything else you might need.

It's not so much getting the info that takes time (though that CAN take a lot of time depending on what it is you're looking for), it's sifting through all the info, and crunching the data to make sure it all makes sense.

I would be surprised, if MARTA is considering the buses seriously, there isn't already a test bay set up somewhere. After all, one bus is going to be used on select routes, and other buses have been under test already, according to the sign from the groundbreaking event.

See, we're already months into the process, but we still have months to go while things are tested and evaluated.

All of that is good. It keeps the agency from making snap decisions that may very well waste lots of money, or cost much more than needed.

[cqholt]

Could MARTA implement any of these advancements in bus technology to provide greater flexibility in their operations and fleet?

Local, neighborhood circulatory routes

BRT in dedicated lanes, with enhanced stations

E-buses are already being tested by MARTA
The Next Wave of High-Tech Buses - CityLab

[cqholt]

MARTA offering hotel guests 25% discounted passes

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Could MARTA implement any of these advancements in bus technology to provide greater flexibility in their operations and fleet?

Local, neighborhood circulatory routes

That little Olli has great potential.

Seems like it would fit well with MARTA's plans to add a fleet of self-driving vehicles.

Flood the zone with them and forget about all these ultra-expensive non-mobile streetcars.

Keith [Parker] told our audience of more than 300 CRE pros that autonomous vehicles could become that critical link to the last-mile transportation of riders, and within 10 years, he envisions a fleet of automated MARTA vehicles. “As we think about late-night service, service in areas that are less dense...having those automated vehicles” will be a “critical component” to the MARTA system, he said.

Read more at: https://www.bisnow.com/atlanta/news/...medium=Browser

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by arjay57

That little Olli has great potential.

Seems like it would fit well with MARTA's plans to add a fleet of self-driving vehicles.

Flood the zone with them and forget about all these ultra-expensive non-mobile streetcars.

There are issues with them and all AVs

They poke along at anywhere between six and 15 miles per hour depending on the maker and each city’s safety restrictions, and the ones already in use provide limited service in controlled setting. Driverless buses in Helsinki, for example, are focused on providing “last-mile” service and carry about a dozen passengers per vehicle. They debuted in September, running at seven miles an hour on a straight, quarter-mile route. Even at that kind of speed, some buses get into trouble when sensors encounter an atypical situation. One program in Switzerland had to be suspended after it bumped into the open tailgate of a parked van.

These shuttles might help address the concern that single-passenger AVs will trigger overwhelming urban congestion. But Salvucci sounds a cautionary note. "Streets are very complicated environments to drive in; you got jaywalkers and bike riders who sometimes dart out in front of the bus,” he says. “I think solving the technology problems for an urban bus to be safe is going to be very tough.” Even assuming that buses are equipped with proper safety features, there’s the potential problem of pedestrians adjusting their behavior for the worse. That’s the basis for one recent research paper that uses game theory to suggest that when pedestrian learn that autonomous vehicles always stop for people, they’ll jaywalk with impunity.

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by arjay57

That little Olli has great potential.

Seems like it would fit well with MARTA's plans to add a fleet of self-driving vehicles.

Flood the zone with them and forget about all these ultra-expensive non-mobile streetcars.

Pods like these fill a completely different role than streetcars and light rail. One is not a suitable replacement for the other.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by cqholt

There are issues with them and all AVs

I don't think they'd be using these things in transit meccas like Berlin and Copenhagen if they weren't pretty good. If you run them at about 20 mph that's plenty fast for residential areas. That's still 7 times faster than walking and you don't have to trudge along in the boiling sun or the driving rain.

You can print them out and get them rolling within a matter of weeks and you don't need to build multi-billion dollar infrastructure.