Let's make more self-driving mini-vehicles

I think there should be not only self-driving cars, but also self-driving segways, unicycles, bicycles, and more, to solve the last-mile problem.

The last-mile problem is this: when people take public transport, they can't get to exactly where they want to go, and must walk the last mile. This sometimes deters people from using public transport. There has been many solutions:

• Just walk.
• Ride-sharing bicycle/scooter/unicycles.
• Carry the bicycle along on the public transport.
• Give up and drive a car.

Why?

The main problem with ride-sharing are two:

1. Once they go out, it's hard to get them back to their stations. People like to just toss them anywhere.
2. Even if people park them nicely, it's still hard to maintain a balance of vehicles at the stations. Some stations lose bikes on average, while others gain.

The first problem is essentially the last-half-mile problem, and can be solved by adding many small stations, but that exacerbates the second problem, since each station has so few vehicles that a small fluctuation in supply and demand would completely fill or drain a station.

I propose to make self-driving mini-vehicles of all kinds to solve both problems. Self-driving vehicles can return to the nearest stations when you are done using them. They can be summoned to your place. They can even carry heavy loads and follow you around. Think luggage bots at airports and hotels, or a tripod-scooter with multiple configurations, one of which has a basket on top, and it would go grocery shopping with you.

Self-driving vehicles can rebalance the loads at the stations automatically. If a station is critically draining or filling, the vehicles can automatically move around to restore balance. Optimization algorithm in the cloud can also learn the usage patterns and adjust loads at the stations in anticipation of peaks and troughs in supply and demand.

What?

The next question is: what kind of self-driving vehicle?

As one example, there is self-driving bicycle already. But it is very bulky, and this is unfortunate by design: bicycles are designed to balance stably only when a person is sitting on it. As a result, self-driving bicycles have to carry a massive load just to keep their balance when not carrying a human. Similarly, there are self-driving motorcycles, but they suffer the same kind of inherent unbalance.

In contrast, machines like mini-segway (aka "hooverboard"), solowheel, and tripod scooters, are stable both with and without a human. Thus, they already have an advantage over bicycles.

Further, these vehicles have more advantages over bicycles: they are small and light. Small means they can be stored compactly. Light means they don't pose a danger to pedestrians, and thus their safety regulations can be cleared more easily.

The solowheel and the tripod scooters are particularly interesting, as they are thin. Existing pavements can have special lanes drawn over them as expressways for these vehicles. Basically, bikelanes, but thinner.

The solowheel is the most interesting, as it is not only thin, but also short. One can build an underground "subway" system for solowheels just beneath the pavements, so that they flow through the city without affecting on-the-ground traffic. This is like a miniature version of the Boring Company's project of digging tunnels underground for personal cars to move through.

Who?

Segway was unveiled in 2001, with an ambition to solve the last-mile problem. That dream died, but it is alive again. Segway was bought by Ninebot in 2015, and now the company is called Segway-Ninebot.

Segway-Ninebot is the company that is most of these types of vehicles in the world. Also, in 2019 October, it unveiled self-driving technology in these vehicles, starting with the scooter Kickscooter T90, and the two tripod delivery robots (DeliveryBot S2 and X1).

Not only that, Segway-Ninebot has already a modicum of self-driving technology in its Loomo robot:

However, I don't see the point in using a two-wheeled configuration for such situations. After all, the two-wheeled configuration is highly unstable, and Segway used it only to allow the "lean forward/backward" way of control by a human standing on it. Without a human on top, it would be much more stable to have a third wheel.

I personally think it should have a fold-on wheel that automatically folds-out when the robot becomes autonomous, and folds-in when a human is about to step on it (perhaps the human must say "carry me, [ROBOT-NAME]").