this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2025
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Fuck Cars

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[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 31 points 4 days ago (2 children)

and unsurprisingly it's a german project, a country which is absolutely fucking covered in rural lines that are just rusting away

like, holy shit, can we stop branding everything that isn't a bog-standard train as "tech bro gadgetbahn"? this thing very explicitly has a specific problem it's trying to solve.

[–] antimidas@sopuli.xyz 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Germans had a working solution to this for decades, but apparently gave up on it for some reason (not competitive with road traffic is probably the correct one)

It was called a railbus and they were once quite prevalent on European branch lines. Finland had and Sweden loads as well, in rural areas, until someone decided that a normal bus is better for some reason.

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

the problem is that you still need a driver, so frequency is going to be limited, which makes the service barely usable. Lack of places for vehicles to pass also limits possible frequency on these rural lines.

the idea behind monocab is that you can just throw more vehicles at the problem, so people can either just order a cab or you can have them constantly circulating like a very strange merry-go-round.

Railbuses are still good, but they made a lot more sense in the past. These days people have very very little tolerance for waiting.

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

If that pod can be automated, the rail bus can be automated.

[–] Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Trains are expensive, high-capacity vehicles.

If these small cheap vehicles can repurpose tracks in low demand areas, what's so bad about it?

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 3 days ago

exactly, i'm catiously optimistic because if this works it could be kinda revolutionary, if rural germans can be convinced to use some form of public transport that's a huge step towards weaning that hideously car-brained nation off the deathmobiles.

and the big thing with these is that they just run on normal tracks, so you can just.. start running normal trains once you see that ridership with the monocabs is reaching sufficient numbers!

[–] trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world -1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Because 9/10 times they are awful, expensive, unused, and quickly shut down.

You don't see any of these niche techslop pods operating anywhere you actually go, because they don't work.

[–] black0ut@pawb.social 3 points 2 days ago

I don't know why you're being downvoted. I'd say you're wrong, because it's 10/10 times these things don't work. I've seen many similar projects get proposed, funded and abandoned (even some that really did sound more efficient than this to me). The truth is, standard trains are still the cheapest thing you can put on those rails. They're simple, repairable, predictable, they don't break easily, can be easily driven by anyone or automated with standard systems that have been around for decades. Even if a small govt can't buy a new train, they can get second hand trains from other cities, which will still work perfectly for decades.

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

have you actually looked at what we're talking about, like at all? or are you just following the programming of "small vehicle=bad"?

[–] trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

okay so where do these things actually work?

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

on the testing tracks, because it's new technology and needs to be exhaustively tested before the government allows it to be put into service.

like, trains were also new technology at one point, being new doesn't somehow inherently make it bad lmao

[–] trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Except this is not the first time this sort of thing has been proposed.