随着机器人出租车等自动驾驶车辆在美国街头日益常见，公共交通系统正在讨论是否也应实现无人驾驶。
As automated vehicles such as robotaxis become more common on American streets, transit systems are debating whether to go driverless as well.
杰夫·麦克默里 定于美国东部时间周六上午7点发布，10月24日。
JEFF McMURRAY Slotted for 7 a.m. EDT Saturday, 10/24.
即使机器人出租车等自动驾驶车辆在美国愈发普及，几乎所有大众运输系统仍要求车上配备驾驶员或操作员。两座主要城市正寻求改变这一现状。
Even as automated vehicles such as robotaxis grow more prevalent in the U.S., almost every mass transit system still requires a driver or operator on board. Two major cities are seeking to change that.
华盛顿特区官员近日推进了一项计划，可能让计算机全面控制其地铁线路之一，而洛杉矶正寻求新建一条完全自动化的线路。檀香山已拥有一条此类线路。
Officials in Washington, D.C., recently advanced a plan that could let computers fully control one of its subways, and Los Angeles is seeking to build a new, completely automated line. Honolulu already has one.
华盛顿和洛杉矶的项目实施需耗时数年，且仍面临财务和技术障碍，它们出台之际，关于自动驾驶列车的安全风险与收益、巨额前期投入是否值得长期节省的人力成本，已引发激烈辩论。
The Washington and LA projects, which would take years to implement and still face financial and technical hurdles, come amid an already fierce debate over the safety risks and benefits of automated trains and whether the substantial upfront expense is worth the long-term savings in labor costs.
支持者称此举早已过期，指出美国城市远落后于世界众多运行无人值守地铁、轻轨或公交系统的地区，其中包括欧洲和亚洲的多个城市，以及加拿大、澳大利亚、南美洲和中东的主要系统。
Supporters call the push long overdue, pointing out that American cities lag far behind numerous places across the world that run unattended subways, metros or buses, including several cities in Europe and Asia, as well as major systems in Canada, Australia, South America and the Middle East.
“实现公路车辆自动化应该比固定轨道系统难得多，因为公路上会有各种各样的障碍物迎面而来，”自由意志主义智库理性基金会交通政策高级总监巴鲁克·费根鲍姆说，该智库一直倡导交通自动化。“我不知道怎么好听地说，但基本上交通领域是创新去死的地方。” 大规模交通自动化在美国发展缓慢 直到最近几年，Waymo、特斯拉、Zoox 等公司的公路车辆才在美国率先实现自动化领先，超越了使用轨道的交通系统。
“It should be much harder to automate something that’s on-road, that has all of these various obstacles coming at it, compared to a fixed-rail system,” said Baruch Feigenbaum, senior managing director of transportation policy at the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank that has advocated for transit automation. “I don’t know a nice way to say this, but basically the transit world is where innovation goes to die.”Wide-scale transit automation has been slow to develop in the US Only in recent years have on-road vehicles from such companies as Waymo,Tesla Zoox taken the automation lead in the U.S. ahead of transit systems using a track.
事实上，虽然操作员一直是华盛顿特区地铁系统的一部分，但该系统在 50 年前开通时，列车就已具备一些自动化功能。2009 年发生一起致命事故后，这些功能被关闭，直到过去两年才恢复。
In fact, although operators have always been part of the Metro subway system in Washington, D.C., trains ran with some automated features when it opened 50 years ago. After a 2009 fatal crash, those were turned off, then restored over the past two years.
如今，首都官员重启了在地铁红线推行自动化的推动。而在洛杉矶，一项环境评估正在进行，针对其重轨系统一条新地下线路的自动化轨道，该线路将穿越圣莫尼卡山脉崎岖地形。
Now, officials in the nation’s capital have renewed their push for automation on Metro’s Red Line. And an environmental review is underway in Los Angeles for an automated track for a new underground line of its heavy-rail system that would cut through the rough terrain of the Santa Monica Mountains.
火奴鲁鲁已经在运营一条高架无人驾驶线路——这是美国规模最大的自动化交通系统。完工后将延伸 19 英里，超越底特律和迈阿密在 1980 年代作为试点项目开通的高架无人驾驶列车、连接拉斯维加斯大道酒店的单轨列车，以及在机场航站楼间运送乘客的较小系统。
Honolulu is already running an elevated driverless line — the most expansive automated transit system in the U.S. It’ll stretch 19 miles when completed, surpassing the elevated driverless trains Detroit and Miami opened as pilot projects in the 1980s, a monorail connecting hotels on the Las Vegas Strip, and smaller systems that carry passengers between airport terminals.
田纳西州孟菲斯曾运营的一条自动化单轨列车多年前已关闭。而由于预算削减，杰克逊维尔空中列车将无限期停止运营，尽管最初曾计划建设一个更大规模的自动化系统。事故叫停自动化进程2009年，在华盛顿地铁红线福特托滕站附近发生的列车相撞事故造成9人死亡、多人受伤，国家运输安全委员会将事故归咎于用于保持列车间距的自动信号系统存在维护问题。
An automated monorail that once ran in Memphis, Tennessee, closed down years ago. And the driverless Jacksonville Skyway will indefinitely halt operations soon due to budget cuts, despite initial plans for an even larger automated system. Crash slams the brakes on automation efforts After nine people were killed and many others injured in the 2009 train collision near the Fort Totten station on the D.C. Red Line, the National Transportation Safety Board blamed the crash on a maintenance problem in the automated signaling system that separates trains from one another.
华盛顿都会区交通局（WMATA）首席执行官兰迪·克拉克在接受美联社采访时指出，福特托滕事故与2024年在红线恢复、去年在其他地铁线路恢复的类似定速巡航系统无关。不过，他承认多年来这起事故曾让地铁的进一步自动化计划“陷入瘫痪”。
Randy Clarke, CEO of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority pointed out in an interview with The Associated Press that the issue in Fort Totten had nothing to do with the cruise control-like system that was restored on the Red Line in 2024 and the other Metro lines last year. Still, he acknowledged that for many years the crash “paralyzed” Metro’s plans for further automation.
克拉克表示：“那绝对是一次重大失误，毫无疑问。我们现在绝不做那种事。”他称目前的系统“监管极严、文档极详、运行极为熟练”。在董事会于4月支持一项近10亿美元的计划、旨在为红线升级包括防止乘客进入轨道的防护栏在内的安全设施后，列车最早可望于2033年实现无人驾驶。
“That was a big failure, there’s no question. We do not do anything like that now,” said Clarke, who called the current system “highly regulated, highly documented, very proficient.”Trains could conceivably run without a human worker inside the cab as early as 2033 under the nearly $1 billion plan Metro’s Board of Directors backed in April to upgrade the Red Line with safety features including protective barriers that prevent passengers from getting onto the tracks.
克拉克说，即使不需要工人亲自驾驶列车，仍需要他们维护轨道和应对紧急情况。
Clarke said that even if workers aren’t needed to physically run the trains, they will be needed to maintain the tracks and respond to emergencies.
工会一直是自动化的批评者。曾在纽约地铁系统工作、现任运输工人联合会国际主席的约翰·萨缪尔森表示，工会在纽约及其他地方挫败了自动化尝试，称其为“等待发生的灾难”。他说：“乘客将不得不自行疏散，在依靠第三轨供电的系统中，这简直是场灾难。”
Unions have been critics of automation. John Samuelsen, a former worker in the New York subway system who now serves as international president of the Transport Workers Union, said unions have fought off automation efforts in New York and elsewhere, calling them “a catastrophe waiting to happen.”“Passengers will be left dealing with a self-evacuation, which is a disaster in a system which runs on a third rail,” Samuelsen said.
檀香山宣传其自动化的“天际线”系统保持零事故记录。为缓解通勤者面临的严重交通瓶颈，檀香山三年前开通了“天际线”自动轻轨交通系统，并于去年对其进行了扩建。
Honolulu touts unblemished record with its automated Skyline To alleviate massive traffic bottlenecks for commuters, Honolulu opened its Skyline automated light metro transit system three years ago and expanded it last year.
该系统项目主管万斯·津田表示，与自动化相关的撞车或受伤事故一起都没有发生过。他说，即便是混合系统也不如完全自动化的系统安全，他认为人类远比机器更容易忽视诸如车门未关之类的问题，并过早允许列车发车。
Vance Tsuda, the system’s project director, said there hasn’t been a single crash or injury associated with automation. Even hybrid systems are less safe than a completely automated one, he said, arguing that a human is far more likely to overlook something like an open door and prematurely clear a train for departure.
“如果是人来做这个决定，他们可能会做出错误的决定，”津田说。
“If you have somebody making that decision, they could make a wrong decision,” Tsuda said.
但研究过自动化交通的亚利桑那州立大学城市规划副教授戴维·金表示，要保持公众信任，成功率必须始终保持完美。他说，正因如此，福特托滕站的事故以及其他涉及自动化的事故才让这项技术如此落后。
But David King, an associate professor of urban planning at Arizona State University who has researched automated transportation, said the success rate has to remain perfect to keep the public trust. That’s why the Fort Totten crash and others involving automation put the technology so far behind, he said.
“我们对私营企业的失败有一定程度的容忍，但当政府这么做时，我们却不会容忍，”金说，并以埃隆·马斯克的SpaceX炸毁多枚火箭为例——他认为，如果这种事发生在公共部门，NASA的预算早就难以为继了。
“We allow a certain amount of failure with private industry that we don’t tolerate when the state does it,” said King, citing the several rockets blown up by Elon Musk’s SpaceX — a record he argues would cripple NASA’s budget if it happened in the public sector.
洛杉矶为穿山地铁推出安全计划。美国正在推进的交通自动化项目中，或许最雄心勃勃的是洛杉矶官员投票建议修建的穿越圣莫尼卡山脉的地铁线路。该地区是全国最臭名昭著的交通痛点之一，山脉将繁华的西区就业中心与圣费尔南多谷隔开。
LA rolls out safety plans for a subway beneath the mountains Perhaps the most ambitious transit automation effort being pursued in the U.S. is the subway line Los Angeles officials voted to recommend beneath the Santa Monica Mountains. The area is one of the most notorious traffic headaches in the country, with the mountains dividing the bustling Westside employment hub from the San Fernando Valley.
好莱坞附近同一山脉下方已经有一条地铁系统，但那条线路有司机在车上。负责洛杉矶地铁塞普尔维达项目规划的塞西莉·韦表示，正在接受环境审查的新提案将采用更短、班次更密的列车。
There’s already a subway system under the same mountain range near Hollywood, but that one has a driver onboard. The new proposal, which is undergoing an environmental review, would use shorter, more frequent trains, said Cecily Way, who oversees planning for the Sepulveda Project for LA Metro.
与华盛顿的项目类似，洛杉矶的新线路也将设置站台门，以保护站台上的乘客免受来车威胁。
Like the project in Washington, the new line in Los Angeles would feature station doors to protect passengers on the platform from oncoming trains.
Reason基金会的费根鲍姆表示，像洛杉矶或华盛顿这样的大型交通线路实现自动化，可能会为其他城市效仿打开大门。
Feigenbaum with the Reason Foundation said that automation of a major transit line such as in Los Angeles or Washington could open the floodgates for other cities to follow.
“它传递了一个信号，即这在技术上是可行的，也许其他系统也会想要追求这一点，”他说。
“It sends a signal that this is technologically doable and this is something that maybe other systems are going to want to strive for,” he said.