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A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

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Re: A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

#31

Post by hirsin »

jliptzin wrote: post #18
jacquesm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a complete nobrainer. Right now the bulk of the cars are single occupant. That's because it is the occupants going places, not the cars. As soon as self-driving cars are a reality it will be the cars going places that get added to all the other traffic already there.

And you won’t need to park cars on valuable street area. Ideally they’d only stop to load/unload passengers, or to charge. That would free up many more lanes on city streets.

A lane, maybe, some of the time. And don't underestimate the impact of pick up/drop off. Uber was supposed to bring the same change, but not it just takes twice as long to get through Capitol Hill because it's crowded with ubers waiting on pickups.

Re: A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

#32

Post by Aloha »

jliptzin wrote: post #18
jacquesm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a complete nobrainer. Right now the bulk of the cars are single occupant. That's because it is the occupants going places, not the cars. As soon as self-driving cars are a reality it will be the cars going places that get added to all the other traffic already there.

And you won’t need to park cars on valuable street area. Ideally they’d only stop to load/unload passengers, or to charge. That would free up many more lanes on city streets.

They need to go somewhere, no one is going to send their car home on a 40 mile one way trip.

Re: A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

#34

Post by Aloha »

CydeWeys wrote: post #16
kjksf wrote: post #3

Here's what this research tells me: demand for transportation is much higher than the current use of transportation. Current use is limited by cost and convenience. Self-driving car is likely to fix both so it'll lead to more use of transportation. This is a good thing. We're currently deprived and if things go well, we'll get more of what we want. The congestion problem is mostly overblown. First, maybe with rare ex…

> The congestion problem is mostly overblown. It's really not. Congestion is a huge problem already, and increasing the current road utilization by 83% will bring entire cities to a standstill for the entirety of waking hours. > I just eyeballed but ~80% cars were single person. Yes, and in the AV future the majority of cars on the road will have zero occupants, so things will get much, much worse as far as how many…

If the future is car as a service, then yes congestion does not automatically get worse, you call an automated car to pick you up, and another one to take you home, it might also mean that more ride sharing happens too

Re: A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

#35

Post by justicezyx »

kjksf wrote: post #3

Here's what this research tells me: demand for transportation is much higher than the current use of transportation. Current use is limited by cost and convenience. Self-driving car is likely to fix both so it'll lead to more use of transportation. This is a good thing. We're currently deprived and if things go well, we'll get more of what we want. The congestion problem is mostly overblown. First, maybe with rare ex…

> First, maybe with rare exceptions like L.A., the traffic is only bad during rush hour,

If this is not the only problem, what is the problem...

Re: A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

#37

Post by Ididntdothis »

im3w1l wrote: post #2

Imagine a job where you work for 3h out of an autonomous office-furnished RV, have meetings and lunch for 2.5h and then work for 3h in the car again. You could live where land is really cheap! And you wouldn't need to sit in an open office. Better hope your mileage is good though.

That seems incredibly wasteful. You spend 6 hours in a car for 2.5 hours at the office. Just come to the office for a whole day once a week and stay home the other days,

Re: A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

#38

Post by runeks »

kjksf wrote: post #3

Here's what this research tells me: demand for transportation is much higher than the current use of transportation. Current use is limited by cost and convenience. Self-driving car is likely to fix both so it'll lead to more use of transportation. This is a good thing. We're currently deprived and if things go well, we'll get more of what we want. The congestion problem is mostly overblown. First, maybe with rare ex…

> Current use is limited by cost [..]

Use is always limited by cost. It’s not possible to separate demand from price, ie. demand only makes sense for a given price.

Re: A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

#39

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

kjksf wrote: post #3

Here's what this research tells me: demand for transportation is much higher than the current use of transportation. Current use is limited by cost and convenience. Self-driving car is likely to fix both so it'll lead to more use of transportation. This is a good thing. We're currently deprived and if things go well, we'll get more of what we want. The congestion problem is mostly overblown. First, maybe with rare ex…

How would robotaxis fix the ~80% of cars being single person? It seems like it would make it even worse, replacing some of those with zero people in the car.

Re: A Week with Chauffeurs Showed the Major Flaw in a Self-Driving Car Future

#40

Post by rladd »

I think the conclusion is probably right, but the experiment seems problematic.

If I was told that a chauffeur was waiting for me to tell them where to take me, I might feel a little obligated to keep them busy rather than just waiting around for me. So I might take more rides than I would have otherwise, out of some sense of politeness.

A better experiment might be to give people an unlimited Lyft or Uber account for a week. It might also help to tell them that a randomly selected driver will be paid for any time they are not taking rides, so they don't feel like they will be helping someone out if they take more rides.

I think that there would still be an increase in rides, but maybe not quite as large an increase.

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