Apple CEO Tim Cook Says Didi Chuxing 'May Help Traffic Jams Go the Way of the Flip Phone'

[jlc1978]

I think schools should also stagger as well, that would get rid of the stress around that too.

The schools do that at the elementary, middle and high school levels so they can use the same busses for all the runs. I doubt yo could stagger the start times at the same school due to class and teacher scheduling issues. If a teacher worked say 12 - 9 a parent conference would be hard to schedule unless the parent takes off work or comes in real late. Plus, how do you offer classes across a say 12 hour day?

 

[uwdude]

By offering them? Yes one parent who wasn't working during those hours could come in. Yes teacher shifts would have to be staggered of course. Things would be a lot more flexible than they are now.

 

[dilbert99]

I find this stuff to be really interesting, and I would like to see it in action. I question the ability to eliminate traffic Jams though. Maybe reduce.

I think to eliminate traffic jams, all cars would need to speak to each other. I agree it would probably just reduce it.

 

[AppleScruff1]

Honestly China has much larger population, but our public transit system is kind of outdated and rotten compared to China's.

Are you kidding me? The Orange Line is as good as it gets.

 

[simonmet]

and not only self serving drivel, drivel that is completely anti-thesis to his own actions. His behaviour IS purely bottom line first. you can see it by his involvement in TPP, his catering to wallstreet. The constant reminders about profit and pipelines and sales, and forced margins.

I had a lot of hope when Tim Cook took over Apple, that we'd see a far more progressive leadership that does truly put people first (lets be honest, Jobs was a dick). But instead we got a corporate thug who has no qualms about putting profits first while talking out of the other side of his face about progressive values that barely line up with his own companies behaviour

He turned out to be a bigger ******* IMHO that job's was apparently. At least Job's didnt pretend to be the loving kind caring person. Tim COok has ended up being nothing but a hypocrit

This wasn't lost on me either. For some reason though trying to sneak in self-praise was more telling to me than his spin and questionable grasp of the truth.

Both are symptoms of insecurity and psychopathy, but I think the former more so because the latter is (unfortunately) somewhat to be expected from corporations and CEOs.

Talking oneself up, blowing your own trumpet is deeply unattractive in British/Au/NZ culture unless it's meant as a joke. I'm very wary of anyone who does it.

Taken with the awards he's been accepting recently and a pattern of behaviour is emerging. I once had a severely psychopathic boss that would do the same. Accept and claim awards for the work of his team without any credit or recognition for those who did the work.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

The flip phone is a weird analogy for this. You usually use it to describe an outdated technology.

Anyway, sounds cool. Speaking of that, I've been thinking about improving traffic if you make people take unintuitive routes. Maybe alter most of the 4-way intersections to only allow straight and right one way and right only the other way, and also add some left-only intersections... then you take out most of the traffic lights because they'd be no longer needed, or reprogram them to statically indicate the intersection type. So, in some cases, you'd make three rights to do a left, but you wouldn't have to stop.

How could you ever turn left? Too darn bad? Oh yes, you suggested a "left only intersection". Ahem. How the heck would/could you go straight if it's left only? And if it's straight plus left only, you'd be crossing oncoming traffic from the other direction in either set of lanes! Sorry, but as you describe it, it's incredibly unworkable. Three rights to make a left? You'd be going in the wrong direction for some distance (i.e. how far between these wacky intersections until you could complete your turn? What about people on the non-straight sides that are turn only? How do they go straight? How many sets of parallel roads would you need to simply go East coming from the North in that diagram? Why wouldn't you just add an extra lane on the right turns that would merge with cross traffic that goes straight that either dives under or goes over the lanes going North/South? That still leaves a problem with left turns, but that could be solved with a cloverleaf style exit lane that goes over top of both the other lanes. Of course, this already exists. It's called a CLOVERLEAF. Then you have a working system, but it would cost a fortune for every single intersection. These ARE used on Freeway systems where major roads run together (e.g. See Los Angeles; but then even with 6-7 lanes going one direction with massive cloverleafs to avoid all intersections/lights what-so-ever they STILL get gridlock because there's too much traffic during rush hour. You can only fit so much water through a pipe even if it's flowing at full capacity.

Fortunately, there's ALREADY a way to eliminate traffic lights and keep light to medium traffic moving non-stop. It's called a ROUNDABOUT. They're extremely popular in Europe and have steadily been appearing in recent years in the US. But even so, there's still two downsides.

One is in heavy traffic, you'll have a harder time entering one and that means probably coming to an undesirable full stop (though when someone turns right that generally leaves an opening for people that know what a gas pedal is and don't poke poke poke like all too many these days, particularly those driving those god-awful Prius slow-boxes) and two is that running into too many of these in a short period of time can cause disorientation, dizziness and more importantly, mind-numbing irritation at constantly being forced to make half-circles in order to go straight.

Roundabouts also causes traffic to slow way down (<20mph in what might otherwise be a 35, 45 or even 60 mph zone with traffic lights (e.g. rural highways are often 45-60mph but have lights in intersections with generally longer yellow lights). A roundabout wouldn't work there because you'd have to slow traffic to <25mph (10-15 in practice) at every single intersection and again, make half circles that increase distance over a straight line and make me want to puke after awhile (there's 5 in a row in Cottonwood, Az near Jerome, for example (they used to be 4-way stops and I'm not sure roundabouts are an improvement. I would have voted for 2-way stops or sensor based lights because there's times when there's very little traffic coming from one direction or another and a non-stop straight line would be vastly preferable.

The point is the best type of intersection depends largely on the circumstances (types of road and land/city layout and amount of traffic).

 

[falainber]

I doubt that glorified taxis will ever eliminate traffic jams. Calling a taxi via app vs calling it by phone might be more convenient but it does not affect the traffic at all.

 

[sudo1996]

How could you ever turn left? Too darn bad? Oh yes, you suggested a "left only intersection". Ahem. How the heck would/could you go straight if it's left only? And if it's straight plus left only, you'd be crossing oncoming traffic from the other direction in either set of lanes!

Well, the point is you don't. If you want to make a left but can't, as is fairly common in a dense city even without this system (I've lived in LA, Berkeley, and kinda San Francisco), you go to the next block instead. What they do with one-way streets around here is kind of a "lite" version of what I thought of. The distance is always small, and the limiting factor by far is traffic. You often have to go past your destination by a little due to one-way streets, but it's well worth the reduction in traffic, and this would take that to the next level.

Of course, this is made for a grid. You don't do this in a place with really long streets that don't have intersections, and you'd still need a few lights on a few major streets that go across the city. You mentioned roundabouts, but those don't work so well in traffic, as you said. By the way, whoever implemented roundabouts in Berkeley did them totally wrong.
[doublepost=1492834494][/doublepost]

Detroit has a similar system when I visited 15 years ago. I found it annoying having to make a right turn, then a U-turn to turn left. Dunno how folks living in Detroit feel about it, but as a visitor, it made finding my way around a bit more confusing.

Hmm, I had no idea they did that. Now that I think about it, the streets in Berkeley are blocked off in weird places, so I wonder if they're doing something similar. Definitely would be tough to navigate a fully converted city manually. I can't imagine using such a system without automatic navigation.

 

[chr1s60]

It would be plenty workable with a family, especially 2 parent families. One parent would have the luxury of taking the kids to school and getting some errands or things done at home until noon, and depending on the other parent's schedule, they could pick up and do the evening meal and activities. Right now too many parents stress about getting out of work at a certain time to get to school activities and stuff. I think schools should also stagger as well, that would get rid of the stress around that too.

Well I agree with you that schools should start later in the morning than they currently do, I disagree about the family life part. Yes, having parents with different schedules definitely works as you described. My point is that a lot of parents don't want that. Many prefer to both be able to spend time with each other and their kids throughout the week, as well as attend their kid's activities together and not miss them because of work. More "outside the norm" work hours could be a draw to some, but I don't think it would be a major draw.

 

[jlc1978]

Fortunately, there's ALREADY a way to eliminate traffic lights and keep light to medium traffic moving non-stop. It's called a ROUNDABOUT. They're extremely popular in Europe and have steadily been appearing in recent years in the US. But even so, there's still two downsides.

Nah - just follow Boston rules and don't make eye contact and just go...

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Well, the point is you don't. If you want to make a left but can't, as is fairly common in a dense city even without this system (I've lived in LA, Berkeley, and kinda San Francisco), you go to the next block instead.

That's sounds like a one-way street with intermittent left/right one-way streets. You drew a two-way street that won't let you turn left. How can you EVER go left without crossing traffic sooner or later since the north/south always goes straight? You cannot without someone stopping somewhere unless you build an overpass/underpass which costs big money. Three rights STILL won't get you there because you drew the east/west traffic as being forced to turn right with no possibility of continuing to go straight. So the east/west goes across at the next block without stopping? That would mean north/south is forced to turn and cannot continue at the next block since they would be crossing traffic. THINK ABOUT IT.

What they do with one-way streets around here is kind of a "lite" version of what I thought of. The distance is always small, and the limiting factor by far is traffic. You often have to go past your destination by a little due to one-way streets, but it's well worth the reduction in traffic, and this would take that to the next level.

That is not a "lite" version. You version doesn't work. PERIOD. You're describing one-way streets. They do not get rid of intersections. They do not stop traffic from having to stop. They do not do what you think your nonsense system does.

Of course, this is made for a grid.

It's not made for anything. It will not and cannot work not matter what you do short of building overpass/underpass/cloverleafs. Those do exist and are used where major freeways cross and that's it. They're too expensive to use anywhere else.

 

[iWilliam325]

High level management people in big companies in China are just people with strong political background with zero innovation mindsets, they move from company to company just to fill that seat and monitor the operations, it's the lower management people who are actually doing the innovation work but are always copying each other since copyright laws only favor who's background is stronger...
So Tim gave the wrong compliment to the wrong person and invested in the wrong company going to the wrong direction, instead should invest in the movie industry to bring back iTunes Movie store back in China market, now that business is being taken or catching up by Xiao Mi company

 

[sudo1996]

That's sounds like a one-way street with intermittent left/right one-way streets. You drew a two-way street that won't let you turn left. How can you EVER go left without crossing traffic sooner or later since the north/south always goes straight?

That is not a "lite" version. You version doesn't work. PERIOD. You're describing one-way streets. They do not get rid of intersections. They do not stop traffic from having to stop. They do not do what you think your nonsense system does.

Of course you can't turn every single intersection into this if the city is a perfect grid. You end up with a few major streets that mostly have no cross traffic, but where they do, there is a light. But there are sometimes extra roads that could be used instead of this.

The one-way streets don't make very many lights unnecessary (only in "T" intersections) but do reduce how many phases each light has in many cases. For example, 2-way streets sometimes require left turn phases. They're also safer.