Tuesday, Mar. 3, 2026

More responses arrive to NHTSA’s request for comments on Global AV Regulation. Waymo validation of business model. Why are American passenger trains slow and the future of long haul. Join Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for episode 408 of Smart Driving Cars and remember to subscribe!

0:00 open
0:43 NHTSA request for comments on proposed Global AV Regulation draws responses
5:24 Timothy Lee piece headlined Waymo Just Revealed a Crucial Statistic for Scaling its Technology.
16:30 American Affairs reports- Why are American Passenger Trains Slow
18:50 Another headline: The Future of Long Haul Isn’t Coming…It’s Here.
31:13 From cars, trains and trucks…to the latest ARTEMIS news from NASA
35:16 Alain awaiting compendium of MOVES findings from students
35:53 And there’s a new image at the bottom of the latest Smart Driving Cars newsletter

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Waymo just revealed a crucial statistic for scaling its technology

T. Lee, Feb. 18, “Software on board driverless Waymo vehicles makes realtime driving decisions. But the vehicles have the ability to “phone home” and get assistance from humans if they encounter situations they don’t understand.

How often does this happen? Until this week, Waymo kept numbers like this confidential. But on Tuesday, Waymo provided an important clue, revealing that “at any given time, there are approximately 70 Remote Assistance agents on duty worldwide.”

That’s a surprisingly small number given that Waymo has more than 3,000 vehicles in its fleet. And it has big implications for Waymo’s commercial viability….”
Read more
Hmmmm… I agree with Alex Roy… “This absolutely validates AV fleets as a business model,”. Even more importantly, it validates Waymo’s Driver as a safety model. 70 people keep 3,000 Waymo Drivered cars as safe (and arguably safer) than 3,000 people keep 3,000 human driven cars. Since it is safety per mobility provided that counts, the Waymo driver is proving today to be at least 40x safer than human drivers. When something is 40x something else, the underdog in the dog fight is pretty obvious, even to the most casual observer.🙂 Alain

Why Are American Passenger Trains Slow?

A. Miller, Feb 17, “In the 1950s, the Milwaukee Road’s Olympian Hiawatha carried passengers from Minneapolis to Chicago in roughly seven hours. Today, Amtrak’s Empire Builder covers that same distance in just under eight. The New York Central once ran forty-two daily passenger trains between Buffalo and Cleveland, with the 187-mile trip taking three hours. Today, Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited covers the same 187 miles in three and a half hours, if it’s on time, which it often isn’t. And the New York–Montreal run took nine hours in 1940; today’s Adirondack takes over thirteen.

These are particular examples of a general problem. Across the American rail network, passenger trains run slower today than they did before the Second World War. What happened?

None of the obvious explanations, like underinvestment in rail assets or the ubiquity of car culture, solve the puzzle. …” Read more
Hmmmm… A Very interesting explanation is developed. A must read, if for nothing more that it begins to make a lot of sense as to why autonomous trucks may finally grab a foothold. (This is a leadup to the next posting.) Alain

The Future of long-haul isn’t coming. It’s here.

C. Fiander, Feb 15, “…BTW, TORC’s autonomous truck was a big hit @ the Manifest show in Vegas…” Read More
Hmmmm… This was texted to me by Craig, to which I responded “Why”? But before I could get a response, the answer became obvious after reading Andrew Miller’s “Why Are American Passenger Trains Slow”.

The interesting thing about transportation / logistics is not just speed, but speed over time, as made obvious by Aesop’s The Hare & The Tortoise. Today a long-haul driver is already committing 24 hours to the task, even if she drives only the designated hours of service. She is being paid (or should be being paid) for the 24 hours that she is “on the (high)way” even though the assets that she is overseeing (truck and its cargo) are only in motion for only whatever FMCSA Hours of Service Rules allow, which is a not large fraction of 24 hours.

What if … driverless technology were to allow the assets, (truck + load) whose speed over time yield the cash that is available to pay the driver, to move during most of the 24 hours that a long-hauler commits to her trade every day while on the road, instead of less than half because conventional technology requires her to pay undivided attention to the road ahead; else she’ll crash and die. If she didn’t have to remain alert for 10 straight hours, but only needed to provide intermittent oversight, then keeping the freight from never stopping would certainly substantially improve productivity by keeping the assets flowing. There would be more money available for her, the company would be more secure, the end product might actually be able to be cheaper and deliver even more value to the end customer. All because the freight never (infrequently) stopped moving. Win-win-win-win-…

So all the excitement was because Torc put in their ad… “… for freight that never stops moving.” That’s the real value proposition of driverless trucks. It allows for the capture of 24 hours of productivity from the long-haul trucker that already dedicated 24 hours of her life for yield speed over time but has been constrained FMCSA (and rightfully so by society. With conventional technology, she needs to pay attention so as not to die.). But in today’s future, the driving is being done by something else, that allows the asset to move most of the 24 hours. Without spending any more time in the presence of the asset, she becomes twice as productive. Now she no longer needs to stare down the road making sure that she remains between white lines, she likely can become even more productive by doing even more productive tasks such as information and customer services associated with keeping the assets flowing to more than justify her compensation and even a substantial raise. More win-win-win.

Bottom line: driverless in long-haul (or even back & forth LTL) trucking is NOT about removing the driver, it is really about getting 24 hours of productivity for engaging an individual for 24 hours to deliver speed over time while “never” stopping.

What is also buried in all of this is that the important aspect of logistics is that “it should never stop moving from raw materials to the customer’s door and that movement is all about “reliable just-in-time-delivery”. What the automation does is it achieves “reliability” by replacing stockpiling and inventory by information and steady non-stop performance. All of this improves the economy, enabling lower cost of higher quality goods that create even more jobs. Alain

NASA Changes Artemis Plan — Moon Landing Moves to Artemis IV

E. Segal, Feb. 27, “Jared Isaacman just announced major changes to NASA’s Artemis program — and the Moon landing is no longer happening on Artemis III. In a surprise press conference, NASA’s Administrator revealed a new plan to standardize the SLS fleet, increase launch cadence, and split the original Artemis III objectives across multiple missions. The first lunar landing of the Artemis era will now move to Artemis IV, while Artemis III becomes a crewed lander test in low Earth orbit — similar to Apollo 9..…” Read more
Hmmmm… Interesting. Alain

NASA chief Jared Isaacman discusses major changes to Artemis program to get it “back on track”

C. Davenport, Feb. 27, “NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman discussed major changes he’s making to the space agency’s Artemis moon program in an exclusive interview with CBS News space contributor Christian Davenport……” Read more
Hmmmm… Boy do I like Jared as a leader. He is so good! Alain

Orf 467F25 S MOVES-style Mobility Symposium

Orf467F25 students, Dec. 11, “Various student perspectives on MOVES-style mobility around the country. Final project presentations & preliminary reports by students in the class.”
Read more
Hmmmm… Students are putting together a compendium of their findings that will be linked by future version of the SDC eletter. They are late, but they’ll come through in the end. Alain

HandyRides Update

Alain Kornhauser, March 3, “Quintessential Katherine Freund: an Old Guy giving ride to Old Guy who needed a ride.” Hmmmm… Our mission:

Elizabeth & Alain. 🙂