
Self-Driving Cars: A Coming Congestion Disaster? - Tiktaalik
http://www.humantransit.org/2015/11/self-driving-cars-a-coming-congestion-disaster.html
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vessenes
I do not say this lightly -- this is a stupid, stupid concern.

Driverless cars will not circle for an hour unless their owners have free
energy. If (and this is a big if) the typical driverless car is owned by a
single party and not needed, the rational economic incentive will be to park
it somewhere safe where it can't get into trouble and will be close by where
you need it.

Let's imagine a thought experiment about our new $125,000 2019 self driving
Tesla Model S, right after it drops me off in Mountain View. Do I send it out
to circle through the peninsula, or do I tell it to park somewhere 'optimal'
meaning some local optimum of close by, cheap and safe?

Even if it's my new $22,000 2022 self-driving Nissan Leaf, why risk road time,
wear and tear and battery run-down? This just makes no sense as an issue that
litigators need to get on top of.

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Tiktaalik
In your thought experiment there is still a scenario where there is a car
driving around driverless, if even for a short amount of time. That's a new
increase in traffic beyond what we have now.

This is only the most extreme edge case and it's not worth focusing too much
on. The scenarios examined in the KPMG study the blog post cited are more
typical and more concerning.

That study finds that there will be a very significant increase in traffic due
to people younger and older than current drivers that could never drive before
now being able to drive.

It is a good thing that we are expanding access to transportation for people
that had poor access before, but achieving this using autonomous vehicles will
certainly increase the amount of cars on the road.

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brianstorms
Congestion isn't what worries me about self-driving cars.

It's what police and governments will do once they're on the road. What are
your rights as a passenger in a self-driving car? Does a govt official have
the right to track the movements of a self-driving car in real time? Do they
have the right to override your car's computer and order it to pull over? Can
a badguy send a command to the car to make it do something bad, potentially
causing harm to the passengers and to other vehicles? Oh, and let's not even
think about what badguys could do with self-driving cars in terms of
terrorism.

Nah, I'm not gung-ho about a future with these things all over the place.

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wpblogheader
Yah. I agrees with yoo.

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tokenadult
I read the blog post, and all I can think is that I have never, ever, ever
thought of using a self-driving car in the way proposed in the blog post. It
does seem that fairly simple models for pricing road use (including just
taxing vehicle fuel, if the self-driving car uses an engine that burns fuel)
would be enough to respond to the hypothetical problem mentioned in the blog
post.

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scotty79
What if the car is electric? This fuel is really cheap and you can't tax it
without taxing everything else.

If there's is shortage of parking spaces you won't even have to tell the car
to circle the block while you shop. It will do the same by itself looking for
parking spot.

Also if your wife starts work hour later then you do it's just common sense to
send the car back so she can use it. Buying another one would be silly if
power is cheap.

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ams6110
Easy enough to tax electricity used for charging cars. Simply require a
separate electric meter for that use, and tax the power used.

It will happen anyway with or without self-driving cars, assuming electric
vehicles replace gasoline-fueled ones. A big part of the retail price of
gasoline is tax and some way will be found to make up for that. It hasn't
happened yet because EVs are still a negligible fraction of vehicles on the
road.

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scotty79
And what would prevent people from charging cars through the normal meter?

It's not uncommon now to use heating oil or vegetable oil in diesel engines
because they are cheaper due to diesel fuel being taxed heavily.

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robbrown451
You don't have to have the cars being "driverless taxis" to be more efficient
in use of roads, there are lots of other options that might involve sharing
cars with several neighbors, that the driverless feature makes much more
feasible.

While there may be some people who use driverless cars less efficently than
they use cars today, I have no doubt it would be more than balanced out by
people who would be glad to save some money and don't need full ownership of a
car.

I really don't see a scenario where cars are circling for hours in busy parts
of the city. At the very least it could be smart enough to go wait somewhere
out of the way. At least in US cities, people wouldn't tolerate that if it was
significant enough to make a difference.

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tslug
Agreed. With self-driven cars, you can imagine scenarios like hand-offs, where
you ferry multiple passengers at a discounted rate over a common leg of a
trip, and then they transfer to separate cars to go the last leg of their
journey to their separate destinations, also possibly sharing with other
passengers interested in only that leg, who might also be transferring onto
new cars to get to their ultimate destination. You can basically specify your
tolerance (100ft to 1mi) for walking and thus allow even steeper discounts and
more travel options for the self-driving cars.

You can hit occupancy and distance-traveled efficiency with this that we've
never come close to before, and if the pricing is sexy enough by comparison
(and it should be), it's going to be the option most people use, because most
people can barely pay their bills. They will still be saving time over waiting
on bus transfers, which are incredibly slow by comparison.

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jwatte
The biggest cost in a vehicle is the depreciation that comes from both time
and wear. Cars that serve as taxis wear out 10x faster than commute cars. Why
would I want my car to wear out faster? (And electric cars wear on the
battery, whereas gas has direct fuel cost.)

Also, when the car goes home to serve the family, that means the family owns
only one car -- clearing out at least one parking space compared to two active
cars.

Finally, if I go shopping today, I have to circle a number of times just to
find parking. Driverless cars that know where spots are, and don't care about
walking distance, can get of the road faster than that.

So... I'm sure we'll find new problems, but that seems unlikely to be one.

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ant6n
Why would you want to own your commute car? Much cheaper to rent it by the
minute.

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joaorj
Seemed stupid, but I had to read, as I couldn't possible imagine what would
the author come up with to justify how an automated "rule based" predictable
system can cause more congestion that chaotic humans...

On that note, I think the author forgot to mention the noise disaster it will
be when everyone sends their cars driving around the block at night while they
sleep. (yay, some extra garage space)

What??

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simonh
> Driverless taxis will not always be available on demand, especially in
> suburban and rural areas, so a legitimate fear of being stranded will make
> people in those areas prefer the security of having a car just for them.

Young people will b able to afford using driverless taxis a long time before
they can afford to own their own vehicle. I think this will get people so used
to the idea that when they do have the capital to be able to afford one, they
will wonder why they should bother. This is already happening with Uber, so
it's not theoretical, and driverless Uber journeys will be a _lot_ cheaper
than now. Other criticisms, such as that taxis wear out faster are true, but
apply equally to services such as Uber already. Take away the cost of the
driver, and you've got a game changer.

Clearly some people will still want to own vehicles. I think that will always
be true, but but you don't have to replace every singe car on the road with a
driverless taxi to revolutionize our overall use of road transport.

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akjetma
Driverless cars have the unique ability to move without requiring an operator
to be present. They could be allowed to park in regular spots, loading zones,
tow-away spots, etc., for "free" if they provided a mechanism that enables
anyone to tell it to screw off and find another place. A button on the side of
the car for pedestrians and an rf receiver for people in vehicles.

I think there should probably be a tax leveraged against the owners for the
increase in congestion and the reduction of the number of spots available to
people without the device that tells driverless cars to scamper away, but I
don't see the apocalyptic 'circling-the-block' scenario happening here. It
would be cheaper for the owner to put the car into this non-imposing parking
mode than the circling mode, so they would choose the former.

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reustle
> A button on the side of the car for pedestrians

I could see kids pushing these things all day long

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akjetma
I bet after awhile it would be considered bad behavior to do that.

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rdlecler1
It's unlikely that most driverless cars will be SUVs. They'll be more like
smart cars. Take a look on a busy New York City block. You might have 30 cars
between intersections. But if those cars are small, driving bumper to bumper
and door handle to door handle it would take up far less room. Similarly with
parking. Driverless cars can double and triple park in parking garages with
First In Last Out ordering.

