Better Tomorrow Challenges

Home | Forums | FAQs | For Talk Shows

Trains: First computer-driven freight train to be approved by the Department of Transportation of a...

...US state to operate within the state, transporting cargo.

[Driving a train is one of the most boring jobs in existence. It is so well known to be so mind-numbingly boring that trains have buttons ("alerters") which require their human train engineers to either constantly press and/or press every minute or so. But unknown trains on railroad tracks are a thing of the past. All trains are tracked by the central control rooms of their owners and the railroads they are running on. Each train is equipped with its own GPS tracker, and sensors on the rail itself communicate their location at all times to their control center. Its location is known at all times. And there is really nothing a human train engineer can do in an accident, except get injured and die. It is time for this last human job on freight trains to go the way of the brakeman, flagman, and conductor ... who all rode in the also-now-extinct caboose.]

To win this challenge (and Future Challenges #1 through #5), the program must include a learning algorithm, must transmit at least once per operational day what it has learned to the company that developed the program, and download updates from that central server.

Future Challenges:

1) First computer-driven freight train to be approved by the Departments of Transportation of enough US states so that the freight train can travel from the East Coast to the West Coast of the continental US.

2) First computer-driven freight train to be approved by all the Departments of Transportation in the 48 continental US states.

3) First US railroad to add a computer-driven freight train to its stable of trains and to use it regularly.

4) First US railroad to only have computer-driven trains.

5) First passenger train to be computer-driven and to run on a regular route.

6) First US state to set a five-year deadline for all trains traveling through its state to be computer-driven. [Don't be surprised that the first state legislature to pass such a law do so after a deadly freight train accident caused by human error happens in their state.]

7) First major US state (population of 9 million or more) to set a five-year deadline for all trains traveling through its state to be computer-driven.

Discussion:
If you would like to discuss this challenge with others, click here to go to this challenge's discussion forum.

Home | Forums | FAQs | For Talk Shows