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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.
Is it a surprise that when you invent a good thing, people will want to use it? You might as well say that if you invent smart phones, then cell networks will be hopelessly congested. Of course they will, which will create pressures to build out new networks.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
With the advent of self-driving vehicles, we also are embracing enhanced congestion avoidance. When we worry about an extra volume of vehicles on the roadways we must also take into account advanced congestion avoidance routing helping to mitigate that impact. I'm not suggesting that it's a non-issue, but we may not know the true effect for now. The real problems would come from inaccurate road mapping data causing poor route planning. Also, nobody looks forward to their suburb turned into a secondary thoroughfare that suddenly all the non-residents would use.
this new technology opens doors for me.
They drive themselves, but I think you still have to open the door yourself.
Lazy bastard.
Oh wait... not weeping... the other thing.
Over the last couple of decades the airline industry has been going well out of their way to make sure that flying is unpleasant an experience as possible. Granted, they've had no small amount of cooperation from the government. But I've not a doubt in the world that some properly-directed lobbying and cries of "impacting the bottom line" would have returned the TSA thugs to their former jobs delivering pizza and greeting people at walmart ten or more years ago, if the airlines weren't complicit. And even aside from the TSA goons, they've reduced seat pitch, cut amenities, overbooked flights, run flights behind schedule or cancelled them,, eliminated meal services, and started nickel-and-diming with every sort of added fee imaginable, all 100% on their own initiative.
I've no bloody sympathy for them at all. A pox upon their houses.
Imagine all the people...
Door to door time betwen Dallas and Houston favors a car. But the time and concentration excludes a car. You can fly up in the morning, taxi to the office, and taxi to the airport and fly home in the same time as driving, but you have to pay attention to the car the whole time driving..
Commute times will drop significantly when there are self-driving-only lanes, and the makers come up with a single protocol for communication, so they operate more like an indefinite length train than a line of cars.
Learn to love Alaska
All those loud and smelly horseless carriages are a menace and they scare the horses!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Try these:
While microwaves may be safer and cheaper than regular ovens, the alarmist press warns they could also create obesity "The problem, say kitchen appliance researchers, is that people will use them too much."
While computers may be safer and cheaper, the alarmist press warns they could also create over-forestation by replacing paper records "The problem, say accounting researchers, is that people will use them too much."
While televisions may be safer and cheaper than traveling to the theater, the alarmist press warns they could also create widespread job loss among stage actors "The problem, say media researchers, is that people will use them too much."
While wooden tables may be safer and cheaper, the alarmist press warns they could also create more expensive wood "The problem, say carpentry researchers, is that people will use them too much."
While cotton mills may be safer and cheaper, the alarmist press warns they could also create unemployment "The problem, say union researchers, is that people will use them too much."
Are there any random products you couldn't fill into this sentence? Very meaningful speculation... why, it's almost Luddite....
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
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.
By platooning, SDCs can drive much closer together than HDCs, and they also help to smooth out the "accordion effect" in stop-and-go traffic. It is unlikely that they will increase congestion. It is far more likely that they will help relieve congestion.
Large fixed-route public buses will be replaced by small self-driving vans, with flexible on-demand routing. As public transit becomes faster and more convenient, more people will use it, reducing congestion even more.
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.
The problem with parking isn't that there's no parking, it's that there's no parking sufficiently close to where you want to go that you don't mind walking the remaining distance. With self-driving cars that can drop you off then go park themselves, and be summoned when you are ready to leave, this won't be a problem.
Just the fact that a SDC can drive much closer means that at least 2-3 times as many vehicles can fit in the same stretch of road as before. Combine that with the ability to replace traffic signals, stop signs, and it means faster driving overall. Highway intersections that require multi-level construction can be replaced by a simple four-way, with vehicle computers adjusting speed so they can go through safely and at highway speeds.
Of course, there is one reason why SDCs will be overall better than HDCs: Wrecks. Lower the chance of those happening, it it will help immensely. There is also the fact that SDCs don't get drunk, tripping, high, or in a state that renders them unusable for driving. This is arguably the chief cause of wrecks, so by that factor being further mitigates, it will help traffic flow and overall commute times significantly.
You won't want self-driving cars to circle the block wasting juice. Each ride will be a separate rental from your chosen company's fleet. As you check out at the mall or the market, you summon a new ride. Released cars will rest in buffer lots near shopping areas until someone needs a new ride. These will differ from conventional parking lots in not having to be walking distance from shopping, and not being associated with specific shops. Instead, they will be at "summoning distance" from all shopping in a given area. Much less city land devoted to parking, because none of it has to be for "your" car. There will be no more inner-city crapola about "the rightmost ten spaces in this lot is reserved for customers of Bertha's Kitty Boutique."
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.
Haven't you used Uber? It tells you, with pretty high accuracy, how long it will take for a car to show up, how long the ride will take, and what the cost will be. You can summon your ride as you sit down for breakfast and by the time you are done it will be there. If you are out at dinner, you order the car when you get the check and it's there pretty much when you are ready for it. Surge pricing is a wonderful incentive to get people using cars when the roads are less busy, or to take a short trip to a train rather than to pay for a full commute. I think it is a great primary solution, and a natural evolution from services like Zipcar.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Also, SDCs can park much closer together, since the door doesn't need to open to disgorge humans, so they can park with only inches between cars. If they can retract their mirrors (or if the mirrors are replaced with cameras), then they can park even closer. If they have car-to-car communication, then they can park head-to-tail as well as side-by-side, and cooperate to make room for a summoned car to leave. A typical parking lot could hold 2 or 3 times as many SDCs as HDCs.
There were no commercial airlines on September 12, 2001.
Yes there was, I flew from Auckland to Wellington that day.
A car park with cars parked right next to each other will need to be defragged.