Driverless cars will make more traffic, say transport boffins Australian researchers predict that the rise of the autonomous vehicle will make congestion worse. That's the somewhat counter-intuitive conclusion offered by researchers from the University of Sydney's Institute of Transport and Logistical Studies, whose Transport Opinion Survey (TOP) has run since 2010. The most recent …
Your AV will choose quiet roads to cruise up and down whilst it is waiting for your call :)
It is all about the money (and control) though.
AVs cannot break the speed limit - no more fixed penalties
AVs don't need car parking space away from home - no more parking charges or Parking Eye
AVs can't drive recklessly - no need for traffic cops
No need for DVLA (other than model approvals)
No need for DoT
No need for HoC Transport committee
The list goes on and on
The potential impact on political control of AVs is only just being realised by those whose very livelihoods currently depend on non AV forms of transport (including Professors of Institutes of Transport and Logistical Studies).
Hmmmm...
<quote> the rise of the autonomous vehicle will make congestion worse</quote>
Isn't that what we see nowadays, even with the availability of public transport?
<quote>That sharing is vital to any assumption that self-driving vehicles would reduce congestion...</quote>
Isn't that what we have been told all the time about public transport?
<quote>traffic congestion could get worse in the self-driving car era, unless governments encourage sharing</quote>
Isn't this what governments have been doing currently with respects to public transport use?
<quote>Only one-third of people who think they'd buy an autonomous vehicle</quote>
So why would I like to buy/ own the bus/ tube/ train/ taxi/ ferry/ plane (fill in as desired) I ride on with others, when I can use it for a "for-the-ride-only" fee?
Maybe I'm the misguided one, but this sounds like some warped society image, ignore human nature and behaviour, and carving out "an unique market space" for a new product without looking at the expectations and needs of the ones that are expected to pay. Or maybe it is just one of those tech developments that actually nobody has any use for? Then again, I can image those road trains being driverless. Then again, we do have freight trains. Need... coffee... now...
With autonomous cars taxis could become much cheaper, thereby meaning the occasional user can get rid of their car. Commutes could also start to be covered, perhaps on a subscription model. Anyway either way there are still just as many journeys, maybe even more, the only difference is that it is covered by less vehicles. The only reduction in volume is when it might be easier to set up a cab sharing, maybe for a 30% discount and 10min longer route.
I think that's the real use case for autonomous vehicles: combining taxi and car sharing into public transport.
If you can have an uber style app to hail a ride from a fleet of AV's cheaply, and don't mind that car picking up someone else along the way, you could get cheaper and more conveniently to work than by owning a car or current public transport for your day to day movements.
That would free you up to own something personal and fun for the weekend, or alternatively have a family SUV and not use it 95% of the time to sit in city or commuting traffic by yourself but possibly use it for its capabilities.
And it could free you up from owning a car altogether which a growing number of people might find attractive.
"With autonomous cars taxis could become much cheaper,"
But won't because "new technology", "safer" etc, so a premium will be charged, at least initially. Once critical mass is achieved, prices will tumble to kill off the remaining human driven taxis, then the prices will rice back up to "all the market will bear", possibly with a slight nod to competition when the newest incarnation of Uber and their ilk try to "disrupt" the new market.
how many people would have wanted to fly in a wooden box with a quirky "engine" upfront, over the Atlantic? Say, one hundred years ago? How many would have send the photo of their willy to the world to see, and be proud of the clicks, say, 50 years ago? (yeah, I know, just you wait, it will come ;)
p.s. the analogy is not like for like, it's not meant to be. The point is: people attitudes change (shudder).
“the real challenge is getting society to become more sharing either by allowing others to use their cars or through a third party mobility plan”.
No! The real challenge is to get those busybodies to respect democracy when it comes from ordinary more or less selfish people.
I think it needs the pop-up (blow-up?) driver from MIB2 to act as the drivers conscience. In my experience the majority of people don't deface/mess up others cars when they are [sober] passengers. Therefore the autonomous car needs the MIB2 pop-up driver to keep the owners of the car in check. It will need to be a white driver in USA and Britain because as K says in MIB2, the black driver will be racially profiled by the police and keep getting pulled over for no reason.
Perhaps the problem lies deeper than people's attitudes.
All AVs are currently based on normal cars, or derivative thereof. Car interiors are designed environments, with a specific identity and feel to them. They become our personal space by virtue of clutter, seat settings, radio presets, and so on.
A bus or train on the other hand, is not - it's a functional impersonal space.
Perhaps attitudes will change if AVs were designed specifically as functional impersonal things that nobody will mind sharing.
This is how I expect I will use my AV. Most of the time it will be like a normal car - driving me to work and to the shops etc. Some of the time it will be like a taxi - driving me to/from the airport or the pub. And sometimes it will be like a train - driving me into London for a meeting or for dinner. And the beauty of it? I'll never have to pay for parking as I'll just set it to driving round the block until I'm ready for it again. Or send it home, maybe. I certainly won't be allowing the great unwashed into it. I can totally see how that would increase congestion.
"Bike for short journeys, train for longer ones."
That works for you so it must work for everyone else. Everywhere is reasonably flat. Everywhere has good local train services ("good" because I've had experience with not good) and everyone has a good enough sense of balance and fitness to ride a bike. And, as per Charles 9's comment, everywhere has an agreeable climate.
I get it. People don't want to share their cars because, well, other people are arseholes.
So, given the Uber is going down the tubes, I came up with a new idea for an app and car sharing.
I call it TWOC.
Use the app to request a car and some local scallies will twoc one, then drive you around. After they've finished, they make sure it's hygienically clean by torching it. You don't have to worry about some arsehole having a dump in your car's ashtray because you get a new car with the insurance. Everyone is happy.
What could possibly go wrong?
"such a low rate of sharing would be too low to offset population-driven growth"
That doesn't mean they "will make more traffic", it means they will reduce traffic, but won't reduce traffic as much as other factors increase it.
A bit pedantic I know, but the same logic can be used for "vaccines make more measles" and other tomfoolery.
All I can say is that based on what I see around me, humans are incomparably worse than any corrosive agent nature ever had - anything left accessible to the public quickly degrades to somewhere between a seedy baseline and complete ruin in a few months at best, in a matter of days at worst.
There's no way in hell I'd ever share a vehicle with other owners, regardless of how well I know them, and sharing with complete strangers is downright ludicrous. I already do that every time I climb into a cab - privately owned, therefore looked after, and _still_ a rather unpleasant experience more often than not.
As for travelling _together_ with others... well, based on surrounding standards here: NOPE. At least buses, as bad as they are, allow me to scoot away from the worst offenders; but if you climb into my cab next to me, I get out, full stop.
A rare pro-case from me:
Instead of thinking of them as self-driving cars, try thinking of autonomous vehicles as trains that go where you need them to go.
Should SDC/AVs become reality, they will spell he end of widespread private vehicle ownership in net-connected areas.
Back to moaning as per usual: The idea of installing auto-driving stuff in articulated trucks is a problem, especially when the developers blither about the increased brake-awareness meaning trucks can slipstream in trains.
Imagine not only having to follow a truck, but never being able to pass because there are six of the buggers driving nose-to-tail. I predict this will result in fatalities and backlash.
And I remain terrified about the certainty of the repurposed ADC/AV low-speed cruise missile.
"Imagine not only having to follow a truck, but never being able to pass because there are six of the buggers driving nose-to-tail. I predict this will result in fatalities and backlash."
Given the size of your average convoy (to the point there's a whole bloody song about it), you're not thinking big enough (and no, no one wants to slip between the trucks of a regular convoy unless they have to--too risky).
"Instead of thinking of them as self-driving cars, try thinking of autonomous vehicles as trains that go where you need them to go."
But not necessarily when you want one for the simple reason that you'll want one at more or less the same time as everyone else and most of the time someone else will have got them before you.
There's that big bug-a-boo about flexible capacity: that also means surge capacity, that rarely gets used but when it DOES get used, it gets USED! Like when the big game lets out, everyone gets out at once and needs a ride at once. Now you're caught in a vice. Having enough cars to handle this surge means a lot of idle rides most of the time, whereas anything less will mean people wait and gripe as a result. Lose-lose.
And i don't have to ride with anyone else
and it's available exactly when and where i need it
and i don't have to pay every time (my auto is payed off and only minor maintenance)
and it's smart enough to take a different route if i tell it
and it works well in all weather and road conditions (snow, rain, etc.)
and the answer is still HELLZ NO!
Why would anyone lease their car out? It seems to me that once autonomous cars become common, they will mostly become taxis. Without the cost of a driver, I would think that the cost of a taxi would be lower than driving your own car. Some individuals might have their own specialty vehicle such as luxury cars for the wealthy or muscle cars for hoons. Just chrystal ball thoughts.
If autonomous cars become common, a lot of things will change including people's attitudes.
Autonomous cars won't become normal unless they produce benefits for users, and if they do people make trade-offs. This is how change works. People are inherently conservative. Taxis have been around for a long time but they are expensive for most people. The real impact depends on the economics. Most commuters would like to be able to use their commute time to work or play.
In my area of rural USA, a four person family (two driving age kids plus parents) has four cars, because there is no public transport, and the distances are too long to walk or bike. In this case, that might be pared down by one or two cars. My husband's car, driving him three towns away to get the train into the major city, then sits in the lot all day too far away for me to use. I would happily give up a second car and use one car for the both of us, since I have a much shorter commute, and closer errands to run, and can get the car to go back to the train station and pick him up. I can't see sharing with neighbors or strangers, but it would be convenient for us. If I had driving age kids living at home, they could either share parent car or split one between them. Given teenage driver accidents, that would be less worry for parents as well. So, might remove some cars from multi car families.
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