We are a long way from that. In a cab, its somebody's job to keep it clean and safe. An auto-car may arrive with dog droppings, vomit, trash in the back seat with slashed upholstery and condom wrappers. How is that going to be managed?
Maybe its different when you're driving, vs chilling in the back of an auto-car for a half-hour with your sweety. I think young folks will be very creative filling the time.
I think you're obsessed with this one exception. So I'll state your concern outright: How do you prevent people from having sex in an auto-car?
Well, how do you prevent people from having sex in rental cars? First, people that can get a rental car usually can get more comfortable accommodations for other activities. Second, the rental car is only in the renter's control for a short duration, and that duration isn't cheap. Third, the rental agency will hold the renter responsible for any damages caused by this activity.
I'm sure that Zipcar, Car2Go, Enterprise, Avis, and others have solutions for these situations.
Its not that one thing - its a stand-in for the issue of idle folks in a private space, that they don't own or have responsibility for.
There's no other transportation option in existence that combines privacy and anonymity without the requirement to drive. Nookie is only the beginning of what idle folks will get up to.
Rental cars are not the same - we're supposed to be using auto-cars as an everyday thing, to get to work or school or shopping or anything really. Not just on a business trip.
Actually, I can think of one similar place where people have time on their hands in a private space - public restroom stalls. And look how wonderfully that works out for everybody.
Or we can try to do OCR with baggies of trash and other refuse. When people get out, have cameras inside take a photo and somehow tell if the car is clean or not? Then maybe deduct a cleaning fee for leaving behind garbage?
The car could detect if there's garbage, and maybe use some kind of air sensor to tell if it stinks. If it's clean, it would go back into the motor pool, if not it would auto-drive to a detailer's.
(Who wants to help me start a robotic auto detailing company?)
Just do the simple way that Car2Go does: When somebody gets in, they give a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" in regards to the car's internal cleanliness. If the car gets too many "thumbs down" ratings, then it gets put on the list to be cleaned.
How about if its just disgusting? Condom wrappers and stains on the seat. Hard to detect automatically. Cameras are missing the point - back to human monitoring which is far from automatic.
Treat any trash left as worst-case scenario. If it costs $1000 to clean a car when there is a bloody tissue left in the back, charge $1000 when there is a Snickers wrapper in the back. Not fair? Don't leave trash in the car.
Yes, yes. Since we can't cover all edge cases right now, let's abandon the concept completely!
"Disgusting" is a normative, qualitative term. Can you put it into calculable, quantitative terms?
I fail to see how cameras are missing the point. Are you saying that all condom wrappers will be the exact same color as the upholstery? Are you saying the stains on the seat will be the same color as the upholstery? (Are they still stains if they colormatch the material?)
So we take some before photos, and do machine learning analysis. And we can have people rate the car, or even refuse a car, with the app. Yes, you'd have to have a motor pool with idle cars to get this to work correctly, but queue theory says you'd need idle cars during non-peak hours to meet peak demand anyway.
Whoa, sorry, didn't mean to push any hot button. Just exploring the problem space, no emotional content intended.
If a car service is automatic, there are no people guiding its normal operation. Putting cameras back in would mean, I thought, humans to monitor those cameras. That's adding back much of the cost of cabbies.
So maybe the camera can be automated too! That's a good idea. In fact, just their existence may be enough to quash most objectionable activity (snogging, urinating, allowing pet messes, littering).
In the end whatever the scheme has to be practical, not just possible. Its the details that sink projects. Like, how to keep the kids from using an autocar as a makeout pit. And so on.
A private car may be entirely different from a public train. Just thinking out loud. These auto-cars will be a new thing, dissimilar to what came before. Not an American thing (where did that come from?)
I use Car2Go (a car sharing program) extensively. I've never seen any garbage or body fluids. I once found a females sweater left in the back. I don't think it will be as big of a problem as you think.
