> I'm thinking of something like cities could designate specific routes and lanes for L4 cars with designated drop-off locations
I always find it interesting that the further down the road of self-driving we go the more it seems like its a techy version of a known but morre low tech paradigm. This if taken without the self driving part just sounds like a bus lane with bus stops. In fact the driving of a car would be a less efficient mode of transportation considering that they usually only carry one person at a time.
I used to be very pro self-driving cars, but tthte moree I explored urbanism and transportation the more it became apparent that, self-driving is over optimization of an already bad paradigm that is car-centric development. You could cut out the middle man of needing a self driving car if you didn't live far away from the things you needed or if the public transit was efficient and reliable, that seems way easier than trying to figure out how to make cars drive themselves!
The optimistic vision of self-driving vehicles is as a publicly run transit system, where you have a fleet of automated vehicles of varying sizes able to dynamically, collectively route based on demand. A hyper efficient, fully electric bus system.
That would be a pretty exciting development even in, eg, European cities with decent public transit.
Cars aren't efficient. The zoning should be such that things are close by enough. Then with proper cycling infrastructure you can just go by bike. As a result you'll need way less road. As cycling infrastructure is cheap and road maintenance is costly, it'll reduce expenses for e.g. cities.
> European cities with decent public transit.
I'd rather have the mix of public transport, bicycles and roads. Combined with proper zoning. Loads of electric cars just increases demand for a highly inefficient transportation method.
I 100% agree, not only are they much lower impact on the environment but from an implementation perspective are far simpler. I find it kind of funny that people talk about the future of travel and transit being automated electric cars that can pick one person up and take them to another predetermined place without the passenger's intervention. I immediately think it kinda sounds like a bus or a train. I think we have gotten into the habit of falling so in love with convoluted high tech solutions that we overlook the most basic and straightforward answers to these deep problems
I always find it interesting that the further down the road of self-driving we go the more it seems like its a techy version of a known but morre low tech paradigm. This if taken without the self driving part just sounds like a bus lane with bus stops. In fact the driving of a car would be a less efficient mode of transportation considering that they usually only carry one person at a time.
I used to be very pro self-driving cars, but tthte moree I explored urbanism and transportation the more it became apparent that, self-driving is over optimization of an already bad paradigm that is car-centric development. You could cut out the middle man of needing a self driving car if you didn't live far away from the things you needed or if the public transit was efficient and reliable, that seems way easier than trying to figure out how to make cars drive themselves!