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Will Self-Driving Cars Clog Our Highways? (go.com)
An anonymous reader writes: While self-driving cars may be safer and cheaper, the Associated Press warns they could also create massive traffic congestion. "The problem, say transportation researchers, is that people will use them too much." One auto industry expert predicts that self-driving cars will increase travel by those over 65, as well as those between 16 and 24, resulting in at least 2 trillion extra miles being driven each year. In addition, "Airlines also may face new competition as people choose to travel by car at speeds well over 100 mph between cities a few hundred miles apart instead of flying," and faster commute times could mean more urban sprawl as workers may spread into cheaper neighborhoods that are further from the city center.
These people aren't thinking big picture. Forget a fleet of self owned self-driving cars. Yes, self-car ownership is a staple of American life right now, but it's death knell has been sounded.
Imagine a fleet of hundreds of self driving buses, vans, et cetera. Now cross that with Uber -- request a ride, and you get put on a list of stops where the bus is going to go. Picture having to wait no more than 15 minutes for a self-driving public transportation vehicle to take you anywhere in your city, with algorithms picking the most efficient route to get who needs a ride, when they need it. Who is going to buy their own car when you can just get a public transportation pass and go anywhere?
Hell, what government is going to allow people to drive their own cars when self-driving vehicles can drive for them? And when even self-driving self-owned cars turn out to be a detriment to the self-driving public transportation, welp...
We don't consider horses when designing modern roadways, outside of some very specific scenarios. We're entering an era where considering manually driven cars are going to become a similar relic of the past.
Parking is the biggest issue. When you go downtown, you can't find a parking spot. But that's not an issue with self driving cars, you just tell it to circle the block at low speed for 4 hours while you're in the mall. Now imagine everyone doing that downtown.
All good points, but the elephant in this particular room is unexpected emergent behavior of a large coordinated system. If SDCs are centrally controlled, there's a single point of failure that will make EVERYONE late for work at unexpected intervals. If they are more distributed in their control systems, interesting (not in a good way) interactions will develop that cause unexpected system failures and disruptions.
Overall, I expect SDCs will improve the current state of automotive transport, but I don't expect them to be the panacea that everyone likes to paint a picture of.