Driverless cars & trains

[Dave Harris sctchbld]

A number of years ago in Las Vegas the RTC ( County agency that runs the bus system) bought 10 buses from a company in France that were supposed to operate driverless. The deal was that the bus had a laser affair that was supposed to follow a line painted on the street with a special paint.The bus was to be given a dedicated lane and have specially built stops that it would dock in by itself. Before the system ever got up and running it was deterrmined that the special paint would very shortly be degraded by cars running over it to make turns or park or unpark to the point that the bus could not follow it. So the decision was made to try to operate the bus with a driver and let the bus "self drive" only to "dock" because the paint in that area would not be degraded, that too soon ended as about 90 percent of the time the bus either hit the bus stop shelter or the supposed "along for the ride" driver had to manually save the situation. They are still using the 10 buses but with the "star-treck" stuff removed, and a driver firmly belted to the seat.