Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

sfchronicle.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 134 posts

Re: Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

#101

Post by Bluestrike2 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #97
Bluestrike2 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kid doesn't give a damn if the cars behind the car that's about to hit them are braking. All that matters is whether that first car is able to brake fast enough to avoid hitting them, or if not, whether the car has slowed sufficiently to maybe not kill them. If networked autonomous cars are moving faster, the kid is much less likely to survive. Period. Maybe the car detects the kid earlier. But that's not guarant…

This is a huge problem with human drivers today. Get rid of on street parking then you won’t have kids just popping out of nowhere! It holds for pedestrians just trying to cross the street, no need to have a hypothetical kid chasing a ball, it’s already a problem.

Absolutely, but networked autonomous vehicles moving faster so as to increase traffic flow like the parent mentioned would only make the problem worse.

People behave unpredictably. Hell, even when they behave predictably and cross at the crosswalk when they’re supposed to, they can still get hit by cars.

That said, on-street parking does have the benefit of placing a multi-ton shield between traffic and pedestrians and cyclists. Slower speeds and better street design can at least lessen the likelihood of fatal accidents when people pop out between parked cars.

Re: Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

#102

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Bluestrike2 wrote: post #101
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a huge problem with human drivers today. Get rid of on street parking then you won’t have kids just popping out of nowhere! It holds for pedestrians just trying to cross the street, no need to have a hypothetical kid chasing a ball, it’s already a problem.

Absolutely, but networked autonomous vehicles moving faster so as to increase traffic flow like the parent mentioned would only make the problem worse. People behave unpredictably. Hell, even when they behave predictably and cross at the crosswalk when they’re supposed to, they can still get hit by cars. That said, on-street parking does have the benefit of placing a multi-ton shield between traffic and pedestrians a…

I don’t think any road that has kids playing shouldn’t have a fast speed limit. And any road with faster traffic should have no street parking at all, better visibility from the sidewalk, and probably some separation (deeper curbs?). This is regardless of whether AI or people are driving.

Slower speeds work for sure, but getting a robo taxi to adhere to those slower speeds is much more realistic than getting a human driver to do the same.

Re: Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

#103

Post by lancewiggs »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #80
BurningFrog wrote: post #14

The solution for too much traffic is well known and independent of robotaxis. "Road Pricing" means that vehicles pay for driving on congested roads. The price is set so that road supply and demand match, and traffic flows optimally. It also gives the road owner an income for providing important roads.

It needs to be based on the number of passengers, though. 3 people in the car should be free in all circumstances. 2 people in the car should be free sometimes, but pay a very small fee when the road is very congested. 1 person should always pay a fee. Sometimes small, sometimes large, depending on traffic. 0 people in the car (in the case of autonomous cars) should always pay a phat fee. This is the only thing that…

3 people in a car is not at all efficient compared to busses, trains and bicycles, so there should be no real reason to reward that behaviour.

Re: Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

#104

Post by diogenes4 »

xnx wrote: post #67
diogenes4 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile i'm trying to figure out if any city in the us is willing to ban cars. I can't think of any other factor that lowers the quality of life in cities that even comes close to them.

> Meanwhile i'm trying to figure out if any city in the us is willing to ban cars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackinac_Island,_Michigan

Mackinac is a lovely place, but they ban far more than just cars there so it's not a great comparison to other cities. There also isn't a distinction there between transmission and distribution so it's also not a great model for cities regardless.

Re: Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

#105

Post by diogenes4 »

willcipriano wrote: post #40
diogenes4 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile i'm trying to figure out if any city in the us is willing to ban cars. I can't think of any other factor that lowers the quality of life in cities that even comes close to them.

> can't think of any other factor that lowers the quality of life in cities Meanwhile I think nothing lowers quailty of life more than living in a city. That said I don't go into them so you guys can do whatever you like.

This is a very common attitude with americans that dwell in the country. It's just your bog-standard fear of change and the unknown.

Granted, living in the city does reduce your life expectancy by about five years... mostly because of car usage. If only we could figure out how to better distribute labor across a country and not just in cities.

Re: Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

#106

Post by erik_seaberg »

dauertewigkeit wrote: post #39
epicureanideal wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d rather not ride a bus with potentially mentally unstable, smelly, or violent others, especially without at least one other human guaranteed to be present.

We could have premium exclusive busses. Still a better solution then everyone being carried individually in their own private vehicle. Also think of the networking possibilities!

Google and Apple do that, and protesters threaten violence.

Re: Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

#107

Post by shuckles »

acdha wrote: post #31
shuckles wrote: post #10

Uber was supposed to make hailing a vehicle easier. It succeeded at that. Congestion is a matter for traffic engineers and congestion pricing.

You might want to review all of the hype from when they were getting started. There was a ton of talk about how it’d transform cities not to need parking, which a lot of city leaders liked because it allowed them to suggest cuts to transit and bike funding in favor of something associated with richer people. It didn’t work, of course, due to the inherent inefficiencies of cars and the challenge such an expensive serv…

Who cares what people said? They are obviously wrong because they argued from false premises. Uber succeeded because they made hailing a ride easier. Trying to credit them or blaming them for traffic is insane. Traffic is the consequence of roadway design and allocation, not how the cost of VMT is packaged and sold (by Uber or Toyota).

Re: Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

#108

Post by shuckles »

MBCook wrote: post #24
dv_dt wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess if fossil fuel companies can do it with CO2 why not Uber and congestion, sure just sign all us up to pay for the externalities.

They’re already doing that. They don’t want to pay for the parking on the robotaxis, or move them further away when not in use, so they just drive in circles taking up space and making traffic worse without even carrying anyone. Who said having 90+ square feet of pavement to haul an average of around one person was a waste? Now we have the tech to average less than one! (Edit: sq ft corrected, was off by 10x)

Did you just make this up? Uber doesn't even operate robotaxis, and a real robotaxi operator is being forced to park further from its market because of politics: https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/sf-supervisors-rej...

Re: Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

#109

Post by acdha »

shuckles wrote: post #107
acdha wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to review all of the hype from when they were getting started. There was a ton of talk about how it’d transform cities not to need parking, which a lot of city leaders liked because it allowed them to suggest cuts to transit and bike funding in favor of something associated with richer people. It didn’t work, of course, due to the inherent inefficiencies of cars and the challenge such an expensive serv…

Who cares what people said? They are obviously wrong because they argued from false premises. Uber succeeded because they made hailing a ride easier. Trying to credit them or blaming them for traffic is insane. Traffic is the consequence of roadway design and allocation, not how the cost of VMT is packaged and sold (by Uber or Toyota).

Uber encouraged this as part of their campaign for legitimacy. Their policy was to ignore local laws trying to expand as quickly as possible and getting the TED types on their side was part of that.

> Trying to credit them or blaming them for traffic is insane.

I realize you’re a fan but that doesn’t change the fact that having a large number of empty vehicles circling waiting for fares creates more traffic.

This combines both threads: note both that it recognizes Uber and Lyft’s past claims that they’d reduce congestion and their own data show the opposite:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/6/20756945/uber-lyft-tnc-vmt...

Re: Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

#110

Post by jprete »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #96
jprete wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are the kinds of optimizations that work very well in theory and are an absolute nightmare in practice. You're talking about a system where one kid running into the road could cause a chain collision of dozens of cars that were counting on rushing the intersection at high speed. Or, alternatively, could end up with the kid getting hit at 45 miles an hour, with extremely fatal and destructive results.

The same is true with human drivers. That kid has a much better chance of surviving with self driving cars than human driven cars when lots of congestion is involved. (I assume you mean the kid rushes out into a crowded road way with 4 lanes of traffic, which actually happens in China although I doubt that case is a thing in the states)

It is not the same with human drivers, because the GP’s hypothesized system can’t be done at all with human drivers. The 45-MPH human roadway is going to be less crowded because people can’t coordinate their exact speed with the car in front of them and have to leave bigger safety margins than a centrally coordinated system with robot cars.
Post reply on HN