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Why driverless cars may mean jams tomorrow

economist.com

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Re: Why driverless cars may mean jams tomorrow

#31

Post by skgoa »

patresh wrote: post #29
skgoa wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean sharing a ride like say a big, long vehicle with lots of seats that visits a number of stops on a route? Yeah, that would be a great idea. We could improve this even further by giving the ride-share vehicle it's own lane, then turn both the wheels and the road surface into metal to reduce friction. BRB, going to the patent office... Not to be too snarky, but as a non-american it has been amazing to watch the…

I think you're not seeing the full potential of such a system. Public transportation for now is very useful but over large distances can involve many changes, waiting times and inefficiencies. We could have a swarm of driverless cars taking in all passenger requests and computing the optimal dispatching of driverless cars. For instance pick up passenger A and B, drive to place C and drop off B who gets has another dr…

This would not reduce traffic, though. In fact it would increase traffic, because now cars are transiting between revenue trips instead of waiting at the curb.

Re: Why driverless cars may mean jams tomorrow

#32

Post by iainmerrick »

skgoa wrote: post #31
patresh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're not seeing the full potential of such a system. Public transportation for now is very useful but over large distances can involve many changes, waiting times and inefficiencies. We could have a swarm of driverless cars taking in all passenger requests and computing the optimal dispatching of driverless cars. For instance pick up passenger A and B, drive to place C and drop off B who gets has another dr…

This would not reduce traffic, though. In fact it would increase traffic, because now cars are transiting between revenue trips instead of waiting at the curb.

It would increase traffic, but free up some parking space!

Re: Why driverless cars may mean jams tomorrow

#33

Post by alex_duf »

Animats wrote: post #5

No, the way it will work is that roads will have "surge pricing". You'll bid on road space before you leave, and don't get to leave until there's road space for you. US airport landing slots work like that now. Commercial flights don't take off for congested destinations until they've booked a landing slot. This eliminated circling the destination waiting for a landing slot.

Then there's hope as it's probably cheaper to have buses full of people than individual cars

Re: Why driverless cars may mean jams tomorrow

#34

Post by nimbix »

tomohawk wrote: post #23

The odds are that self driving cars will stick to the posted speed limit, and that those limits will not be raised. This will reduce the available capacity of many interstate grade roads, as the posted speed is often unsafely low. On the roads around here, the accepted and safe speed is often around 70mph, but the posted speed is often 55mph. https://www.motorists.org/blog/speed-limits-slower-safer/ Additionally, sel…

This complete disregard for speed limits was a huge shock to me when I was driving in Florida 2 weeks ago. In quite a few EU countries we stick to the posted limits quite strictly. But in the US I was literally bullied into driving way above the limit (75 in a 55 zone) and was still getting overtaken on both sides - in one case even by a police car - and some people used turning lanes to overtake on the right. In addition to this everyone was slamming their brakes when they saw an empty police car parked by the side of the road. Crazy.

Re: Why driverless cars may mean jams tomorrow

#35

Post by skgoa »

nkoren wrote: post #30
skgoa wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean sharing a ride like say a big, long vehicle with lots of seats that visits a number of stops on a route? Yeah, that would be a great idea. We could improve this even further by giving the ride-share vehicle it's own lane, then turn both the wheels and the road surface into metal to reduce friction. BRB, going to the patent office... Not to be too snarky, but as a non-american it has been amazing to watch the…

No, not like that. Trains work well for arterial routes that need to carry large volumes of people along predictable corridors at predictable times of day -- eg., for commuting. And yes America certainly needs to get better at investing in them. But trains don't work at all well for serving smaller volumes of people moving in stochastic patterns at arbitrary times of day. Neither do buses. Cars serve this need very w…

I don't disagree. In fact I work on software for cars, so my career depends on personal transport staying relevant. However, that doesn't adress the question of whether automated cars will increase or decrease traffic.

The original claim was that automated cars will reduce traffic by being more efficient (somehow) and people sharing them for trips. I pointed out that we have the sharing aspect of the issue largely figured out already. The point I did not make, but implied, is that automating cars, buses, trains, boats and aeroplanes will not by itself have much impact on traffic. Instead only a significant shift to more shared (instead of individual) use of these transport modes would. I feel that the image of the trafficless automated transport utopia that is so often conjured on HN, reddit etc. is a massive red herring. Because the benefits people claim stem from automation actually stem from public transport.

Whether the shift to shared transport will happen or not and if it happens how big the shift will be, are completely open questions as far as I can see. I believe that, trips for commuting have lots of scope for being bundled into shared/public transport. Meanwhile the bulk of other trips will continue to be made largely with personal transport. (And I make no claim as to whether those vehicle are owned by the end user or by a fleet operator, that's an entirely different debate.) Not coincidentally, this is exactly what happens in many big european cities that have both good public transport and the road infrastructure to allow for lots of cars to travel at the same time. Many people over here commute daily by public transport, bycicle, rideshare etc., but they also have at least one car for those other trips.

Re: Why driverless cars may mean jams tomorrow

#36

Post by yorwba »

fragsworth wrote: post #6
Animats wrote: post #5

No, the way it will work is that roads will have "surge pricing". You'll bid on road space before you leave, and don't get to leave until there's road space for you. US airport landing slots work like that now. Commercial flights don't take off for congested destinations until they've booked a landing slot. This eliminated circling the destination waiting for a landing slot.

Or you could leave whenever you like, and there's an automated toll on every road that adjusts based on time of day and/or current traffic.

That only works to prevent congestion if some people decide not to drive on a road when the toll is too high. In that case, why drive there in the first place if your AI car can tell you in advance how much it will cost.

Re: Why driverless cars may mean jams tomorrow

#37

Post by CPLX »

nkoren wrote: post #30
skgoa wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean sharing a ride like say a big, long vehicle with lots of seats that visits a number of stops on a route? Yeah, that would be a great idea. We could improve this even further by giving the ride-share vehicle it's own lane, then turn both the wheels and the road surface into metal to reduce friction. BRB, going to the patent office... Not to be too snarky, but as a non-american it has been amazing to watch the…

No, not like that. Trains work well for arterial routes that need to carry large volumes of people along predictable corridors at predictable times of day -- eg., for commuting. And yes America certainly needs to get better at investing in them. But trains don't work at all well for serving smaller volumes of people moving in stochastic patterns at arbitrary times of day. Neither do buses. Cars serve this need very w…

> But trains don't work at all well for serving smaller volumes of people moving in stochastic patterns at arbitrary times of day. Neither do buses.

Have you ever been to Switzerland?

Re: Why driverless cars may mean jams tomorrow

#38

Post by jejones3141 »

skgoa wrote: post #17
alanfranzoni wrote: post #8

This article seems to offer a somewhat limited vision. Personal, driverless cars may mean as many jams as today. What about "ride-sharing" driverless systems, where many people share the same car/minivan in an automated fashion, reducing the number of vehicles on the road and the need for parking? That would make, IMHO, the best compromise between mass transit (effective, but inflexible to people needs) and personal…

You mean sharing a ride like say a big, long vehicle with lots of seats that visits a number of stops on a route? Yeah, that would be a great idea. We could improve this even further by giving the ride-share vehicle it's own lane, then turn both the wheels and the road surface into metal to reduce friction. BRB, going to the patent office... Not to be too snarky, but as a non-american it has been amazing to watch the…

It's not a good thing for the rider. You can only ride where and when the state decides you can ride, and have to organize your life around it. Your residence or your destination is likely some distance from a stop, so you have the problem of getting to or from it, possibly in bad weather. You're herded like cattle into cramped, uncomfortable seats, with minimal provision for anything you may be carrying. What's good about that?

Re: Why driverless cars may mean jams tomorrow

#39

Post by lou1306 »

jejones3141 wrote: post #38
skgoa wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean sharing a ride like say a big, long vehicle with lots of seats that visits a number of stops on a route? Yeah, that would be a great idea. We could improve this even further by giving the ride-share vehicle it's own lane, then turn both the wheels and the road surface into metal to reduce friction. BRB, going to the patent office... Not to be too snarky, but as a non-american it has been amazing to watch the…

It's not a good thing for the rider. You can only ride where and when the state decides you can ride, and have to organize your life around it. Your residence or your destination is likely some distance from a stop, so you have the problem of getting to or from it, possibly in bad weather. You're herded like cattle into cramped, uncomfortable seats, with minimal provision for anything you may be carrying. What's good…

These things apply to bad public transport. In the same vein, I could say that driving a car requires your full attention for all the duration of travel; that your destination is likely some distance from a parking spot; that the time of travel is unpredictable as you can get into a traffic jam, or an accident, or stopped by police; and so on.

Good public transport is really good for both the rider and the city.

Re: Why driverless cars may mean jams tomorrow

#40

Post by Theodores »

Currently only a minority of people aged between 9 and 99 drive a car. Although almost every baby boomer drives it is not so for other generations. With driverless cars that you can just hop in 'taxi style' or own outright then there are going to be a lot more people taking a lot more journeys.

However, the self driving car solves many other problems. For instance, in some of our cities most of the traffic is people driving around looking for some place to park. That is it, that is what they are doing rather than going somewhere important.

At some stage the existing dumb cars we have parked on our streets now will get sent off to the recycling facility, if, at the same time, more people are getting glorified driverless cabs and not buying their own cars, then there really can be a sizeable bit of highway real estate to recover. Hopefully because the self driving cars go in convoy this extra road space can be for people, e.g. on bicycles, and not for yet more automobile infrastructure.

Then there is the school run, no need for the journey there and back, plus the ride sharing can get smarter to know who needs to be where and when, i.e. self aware of all the meetings in town.

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