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Will Robot Cabs Unjam the Streets?
An anonymous reader writes: The Atlantic has a story with some video of a traffic simulator showing just how the roads can be jammed up by people looking for a place to park. (You can play with the simulator too.) This has been suspected for a long time by many traffic researchers and city planners, but the simulator shows just how quickly the roads jam up after just a few of the blocks fill up with parked cars. The good news is that autonomous cars don't need to park-- they just go give someone else a ride. They could change city life forever.
They may work elsewhere but they will just get beaten up in Philadelphia.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If cab drivers are going to riot in the street and inflict personal harm and property damage, who the hell thinks an autonomous car has a snowballs chance in hell ?
There are not enough cab drivers to cause a revolution on their own, and the people aren't with them. The state has far more power and will apply it to suppress personal harm and property damage, and the public will be with the state. Thus they can slow change by various methods--most notably bribery of elected officials and regulatory capture--but they cannot stop it entirely.
Money is the only thing that would let them stop it entirely given those circumstances. (As we see with the health insurance industry which is able to largely prevent meaningful change. Obamacare came 16 years after Bill Clinton tried something bigger, after all.) And the industry doesn't have enough money to do that.
The problem of congestion caused by people circling around looking for parking has already been solved. Cities simply have to wake up to the fact that parking is both rivalrous and excludable and therefore neither a public good nor should be treated as one.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Put the parking underground, far from anywhere. You can just signal your car when you want a ride. And put the roads underground in the cities too. The price of the real estate you free up for better use makes this worth the money. And you want a private car? Have the passenger cabin a detachable module. You get your "own" car without the expense of all the frame/suspension/tires/motors/batteries. And for long road trips you can put your cabin onto a gas car. You could probably work out some sort of turbo-lift system, so you step into your pod like it was an elevator, then it goes where you want.
They don't want to sit in someone else's filth. They don't want their car to drive off, pick up someone who has sex in it or their kid vomits or a pet shits, etc.
Yet millions of people still take public transportation every day.
If the robot cabs are given laser beams and missile launchers they will. Boy will they ever.
"HitchBot 2 - HitchBot's Back, And He's Pissed!!!!!" (not suitable for all audiences, extreme violence and some robot nudity)
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
There is a way to make it happen, but I doubt it will fly. Korea basically did this in the 1970s and 1980s. The government knew it didn't have the road infrastructure to support every household owning a car, so they taxed cars up the wazoo. A car that might cost $10,000 would cost $50,000 after taxes ($100,000 in today's dollars). This had the effect of severely discouraging car ownership. In its place, a robust taxi industry sprang up. I remember visiting downtown Seoul and 80%-90% of the cars on the road were taxis. There were no traffic jams, and if you didn't want to wait for a bus you could hail a taxi within 15-30 seconds.
It all fell apart in 1988. One of the Democratic nominees for President (Gephardt if I remember), in a bid to win Michigan made a huge ruckus about how Hyundai was allowed to sell its cars for $6000 in the U.S., while an equivalent Ford cost $45,000 in Korea. He conveniently left out that the same Hyundai also cost $45,000 in Korea. He didn't win the nomination, but the damage was done. U.S. public sentiment forced the U.S. to pressure Korea to remove their car taxes. Cars in Korea suddenly became affordable to the average household, and Korea plummeted into two decades of gridlock.
"The good news is that autonomous cars don't need to park-- they just go give someone else a ride."
They will only give another person a ride during peak hours, say morning rush hours and evening hours. Mid-day traffic will be lighter, and middle of the night traffic will be downright dead. At those time these Johny Cabs still have to go somewhere. The Schisters trying make a buck will want them programmed to waste the least gas possible. So unlike human cabs that often troll around looking for a fare, these Johny Cabs are likely to park immediately at the closest free spot and wait for someone to call for a ride with their smart phone.
Without enough regulation, these cabs may make parking matters worse, as they won't necessarily go back to home base every night if a few pennies can be saved on gas by parking near where they will be needed in the morning.
Most people who use mass transit use it because it is the most efficient way to get from A to B, not because they can't afford their own vehicle, nor because it's the cheapest option.
Case in point: I stayed in Atlanta for a 4 day weekend at a convention downtown. I drove to my hotel, then used the hotel's free airport shuttle to the airport to take the subway/train system MARTA to downtown Atlanta and back daily (sometimes 3 or 4 round-trips in a day). It cost me all of $10... and it was the fastest way to get from my cheap hotel to downtown as there was also a ballgame and another convention as well and the roads were bumper to bumper. I rode the train several times a day - got my money's worth and met interesting convention-goers on the train. I took a taxi back to the hotel one night when I stayed out later than the trains ran.
IF I had driven my car downtown to a lot, it would have taken two to three times as long - not to mention finding parking in busy downtown even with parking garages (I know - had a buddy that did that the next year we went), plus the cost of gas and parking for the day (for each day) would have been prohibitive. (We settled on staying at a guest hotel downtown the third year... no driving or trains. yay!)
People in cities with mass transit often prefer it over having a vehicle... and they hate the tourists who bring their cars and don't know how to drive or where to park.
But, back to your point -- you're incorrect. The efficiencies don't take hold when the vast majority of a system is automated -- they take place when only a small fraction is in place. There is a tipping point. If one single car stops to turn left into a parking garage, it can back up an entire left lane of traffic for a mile or more in a decent sized city. That's just one car. For each car that pauses to let someone out rather than turning and seeking parking, you get vast returns in traffic efficiency.
If you must make the public vs private argument, then I'd say you're just arguing quality -- if people care enough, they'll get 2 tiered taxis. One for Uber and another for Super-Uber for those that want to ensure their car is squeaky clean. Most mass transit seats are plastic and easily washable. Cars could easily be outfitted with uncomfortable, but sanitary plastic seating and a bottle of alcohol spray for the germaphobes.
Another aspect is that people junk up their cars with their own crap -- but, it's often stuff they want to keep, so they wouldn't be leaving that in Ubers... they'd just leave trash if they're litter-bugs. I bet Uber could record video and charge extra for damage or littering and put a stop to that (assuming it's paid by credit card).
They key issues for ownership of vehicles are - utility, time, personalization, and storage. People like to keep their baby carriers in the vehicle... sometimes their drinks or other groceries, napkins, kleenex, lotion, sunglasses, etc. Sometimes people store presents in trunks to hide from family members.... various other things.
The personal car isn't going away, but it could become an auto-driving personal car. Still, many families may only need 1 personal family car and use an Uber automated taxi for travelling to work, school, and most other short trips.
I'm a little curious as to in what universe you live in which each person brings 1.5 cars to the movie theater.
They need enough room in the parking lot to hold two theater's worth of people, unless you expect the lot to empty and fill instantaneously between shows.