I think there is some possibility in your theory. If every car makes the same assumption, you could have a massive pile up of reactions.
I think this points to making sure the "thinking" of cars has some variation / random aspects in them.
The idea of orbiting cars or slow traffic seeking cars could be dealt with by programing or car behavior regulations. The potential for some sort of virus could be terrifying though.
Even the nanny aids we have now offer some interesting options for those with nefarious intent:
Repaint the stripes on the road to veer off to the side and anything with lane keeping assist will happily punt you into the ditch.
Drop a couple of sheets off an overpass and anything with emergency braking is going to try to stop, probably faster than the car behind it. Every new Subaru is an instant pileup waiting to happen.
Cute girl in the car next to you? Get in front of her, slow down, and let her adaptive cruise bring her down to a stop so you can jump out and introduce yourself.
There are a lot of problems to work out, but I suspect one way traffic could be reduced will be with van/minibus pools. If you have a specific start and end point at the same time 5 days a week, an autonomous system will be able to group people far more efficiently than we can now, and be more versatile than a conventional bus route. Based on cost and utility, this is something that would likely slot in between buses/trains and cabs/single rider AVs.
oldopelguy said:In NYC it would be probably be practical to take a cue from Chicago's elevated trains and pick a couple streets to build an upper deck over.
Designate those for use by single or dual passenger golf cart sized AVs, bicycles, and pedestrians, with 4-6' wide lanes and some greenery and your could cram a whole city worth of transportation into 1/4 the space, even including parking. Small AVs wouldn't have to have lanes much wider than their bodywork and they could swoop down into regular traffic for pickup or drop off. Add a couple of current parking spaces per block turned into microcar loading zones and you could get within half a block of anything without more than a couple of blocks in a tiny car surrounded by the full size ones.
Hugely massive infrastructure project. I wonder what that would cost.
But you don't have to look to Chicago's El, look to our multilevel streets. There are a bunch of bi-levels, and even tri-level streets right downtown.
eastsideTim said:There are a lot of problems to work out, but I suspect one way traffic could be reduced will be with van/minibus pools. If you have a specific start and end point at the same time 5 days a week, an autonomous system will be able to group people far more efficiently than we can now, and be more versatile than a conventional bus route. Based on cost and utility, this is something that would likely slot in between buses/trains and cabs/single rider AVs.
We have van pools where I work. They make a run from the same spots every day at the same times. They seem to see ok usage initially, but then fizzle out after a few months (and eventually go away) as people realize they're locked into the van pool's schedule. Need to leave in the middle of the day because your kid got sick at school? Tough. Need to work late? You just missed your ride home, and you're paying for it no matter what (monthly fee).
Pete Gossett said:I don’t see autonomous vehicle sharing as being a viable alternative for most families.
How many US households have ~2.5 kids that get hauled around daily to school, soccer practice, band camp, and wherever else? How many of those kids are still using forward or rear-facing seats, or boosters? Are people going to be toting their kids/seats(and everything else) in & out of a shared vehicle every time they go somewhere? Not unless it becomes the only financially-viable alternative, and certainly not without protest.
Not to mention all people who use their personal vehicle for work, whether independent plumbers, contractors, etc. who are hauling tools & material; or just those who travel from site to site throughout the day, like salespeople. They will all still need their own personal transportation - and it’s not an insignificant number.
Soccer Moms will get a break going to practice, events etc. send one kid off to a dance recital, another to baseball, the third to BoyScouts etc.
Stores are delivering more and more stuff to your door, including groceries and meals.
I can now call and have car parts delivered to my house instead of stopping work, cleaning up, drive and get the part, then reverse the process. At a $100 an hour shop rate it’s much better use of my time.
Same thing is happening with a few stores like hardware stores, hobby shops, plumbing supply places, etc. They are doing what they can to compete with Amazon. Those that fail to modernize will lose enough business they will be forced to close.
STM317 said:eastsideTim said:There are a lot of problems to work out, but I suspect one way traffic could be reduced will be with van/minibus pools. If you have a specific start and end point at the same time 5 days a week, an autonomous system will be able to group people far more efficiently than we can now, and be more versatile than a conventional bus route. Based on cost and utility, this is something that would likely slot in between buses/trains and cabs/single rider AVs.
We have van pools where I work. They make a run from the same spots every day at the same times. They seem to see ok usage initially, but then fizzle out after a few months (and eventually go away) as people realize they're locked into the van pool's schedule. Need to leave in the middle of the day because your kid got sick at school? Tough. Need to work late? You just missed your ride home, and you're paying for it no matter what (monthly fee).
Automation fixes a lot of the problems with van pools. They can pick you up and drop you off exactly where you want to go, you an cancel a day (or adjust the pickup time) when your plans change. Much more flexible than a current van pool, though still not as flexible as a car.
I would suggest that the autonomous car will increase car ownership in the cities. Most of the expense and PITA of car ownership for the city dweller is having a place to park. That no longer becomes a issue if you can tell your car to park outside the city and come get you when you want it to. Say you live in Manhattan with no parking. Your car parks itself in a cheaply rented spot in Riverdale. Then, when you need your car the next morning, you tell it to pick you up at your building at 9am. It checks Google maps for traffic, picks the fastest route, and leaves it's parking place at 7:45 so it will have time to arrive when you need it. Car ownership in the city just got surprisingly cheap.
eastsideTim said:STM317 said:eastsideTim said:There are a lot of problems to work out, but I suspect one way traffic could be reduced will be with van/minibus pools. If you have a specific start and end point at the same time 5 days a week, an autonomous system will be able to group people far more efficiently than we can now, and be more versatile than a conventional bus route. Based on cost and utility, this is something that would likely slot in between buses/trains and cabs/single rider AVs.
We have van pools where I work. They make a run from the same spots every day at the same times. They seem to see ok usage initially, but then fizzle out after a few months (and eventually go away) as people realize they're locked into the van pool's schedule. Need to leave in the middle of the day because your kid got sick at school? Tough. Need to work late? You just missed your ride home, and you're paying for it no matter what (monthly fee).
Automation fixes a lot of the problems with van pools. They can pick you up and drop you off exactly where you want to go, you an cancel a day (or adjust the pickup time) when your plans change. Much more flexible than a current van pool, though still not as flexible as a car.
How does automation make that more or less flexible? I don't see how not having a driver makes a van more flexible. You can always call the driver of the van to tell him your change of plans, too.
alfadriver said:eastsideTim said:STM317 said:eastsideTim said:There are a lot of problems to work out, but I suspect one way traffic could be reduced will be with van/minibus pools. If you have a specific start and end point at the same time 5 days a week, an autonomous system will be able to group people far more efficiently than we can now, and be more versatile than a conventional bus route. Based on cost and utility, this is something that would likely slot in between buses/trains and cabs/single rider AVs.
We have van pools where I work. They make a run from the same spots every day at the same times. They seem to see ok usage initially, but then fizzle out after a few months (and eventually go away) as people realize they're locked into the van pool's schedule. Need to leave in the middle of the day because your kid got sick at school? Tough. Need to work late? You just missed your ride home, and you're paying for it no matter what (monthly fee).
Automation fixes a lot of the problems with van pools. They can pick you up and drop you off exactly where you want to go, you an cancel a day (or adjust the pickup time) when your plans change. Much more flexible than a current van pool, though still not as flexible as a car.
How does automation make that more or less flexible? I don't see how not having a driver makes a van more flexible. You can always call the driver of the van to tell him your change of plans, too.
When I was in a van pool, it would have made it more flexible.... sort of, because the van pools were driven by employees. In theory, you could have the van make an extra trip in the middle of the day, since it could make a trip on its own, but then we're really getting back to the "how is this different than a taxi or a bus" argument.
eastsideTim said:Automation fixes a lot of the problems with van pools. They can pick you up and drop you off exactly where you want to go, you an cancel a day (or adjust the pickup time) when your plans change. Much more flexible than a current van pool, though still not as flexible as a car.
Typical van pools only make sense when there are multiple passengers to share the cost and reduce the number of vehicles on the road. You can't reschedule or reroute when you've got multiple passengers that will be disrupted, and you can't schedule these things "on demand" or short notice because the company providing the car/van/bus won't be able to predict demand and determine what size vehicle is needed or whether the trip is financially viable.
The ability to hail a ride from anywhere, anytime, to take you somewhere else is not new. That's just a taxi. And if everybody is riding around separately in taxis instead of personal vehicles nothing really changes as far as traffic/congestion are concerned.
Instead of van pools, how about busses? And instead of busses, how about subways or other mass transit? The kind of solutions that actually take cars off the road.
Autonomy really doesn't solve that, so I'm not sure why it's being used as an excuse to put into cars.... It just means that I don't have to drive my car.
In reply to STM317 :
Things will change regarding taxi’s. Slowly over time. With electric cars you no longer need engine compartments, or even trunk space. Crowded metro spaces will be served by egg shaped cars smaller than current smart cars with room for a couple and maybe some packages. Egg shaped to reduce corner damage and to make maneuverability easier in tightly congested areas.
In reply to alfadriver :
If there’s only a single van it doesn’t help. But, with a fleet of them, a computer could readjust for changes much more quickly. Say, you want a pickup at 7:30 instead of your usual 8:30. Maybe there is another van that goes near your house then, and has an empty seat. It can pick you up instead of your usual ride. A dispatcher could do the same thing, but probably not as efficiently. Plus, the odds of having more available vans would likely go up once there are more autonomous vehicles.
Edit: I’d consider van/bus pool as a complement to single rider autonomous vehicles, and it would likely make the most sense for a single company to have a mix of both in their fleet. It’d be easier to handle rider schedule changes that way, they could just charge more if a van seat isn’t available.
On a completely different part of this issue, autonomous car service is a little scary to me. People tend not to take car of “shared” resources as well as their own property. In a cab, you have the driver to enforce at least some decorum. In a bus, you’ve got the drivers and all the other passengers to provide social pressure (I know this doesn’t work on everyone, though). If a solo rider in an autonomous car trashes it, there needs to be some way of handling it - or we’re going to need Fisher Price interiors for everything.
STM317 said:You've been able to summon a shared vehicle to your location for 100 years. They're called taxis. The only real difference that I see between these summoned/shared autonomous vehicles and taxis today is that there's no human behind the wheel, and the money is likely to go toward corporations rather than small/medium taxi companies.
Taxis cause lots of traffic/parking problems now. Taxis are shared with whomever and summoned at will right now. I don't see how any of this improves with autonomy.
You'll still be cramming a ton of vehicles with a single passenger into a small area at the same basic times every day Mon-Fri, and then there will be less busy times/more vehicles sitting idle the rest of the time.
but for a city dweller who just wants to go to work, it does beautifully. They wont need to have a single vehicle at their disposal that needs to do many things. Just going to work? Call a smar car sized vehicle. Need to run to the airport with luggage.. then call minivan. Cars used in a autonomous ride share program can be sized according to need. They also don't need to be pretty, just utilitarian. Nobody is going to be buying them for looks.. just like nobody buys busses because of how they look
alfadriver said:Instead of van pools, how about busses? And instead of busses, how about subways or other mass transit? The kind of solutions that actually take cars off the road.
Autonomy really doesn't solve that, so I'm not sure why it's being used as an excuse to put into cars.... It just means that I don't have to drive my car.
Busses and trains/ subways have a inflexibility that prevents them from being complete solutions. The same inflexibility that dooms van pools from working perfectly.
Look to your own family. Aren’t there times when you and your wife need to go separate ways? Multiply that times the number of families in an area.
eastsideTim said:In reply to alfadriver :
If there’s only a single van it doesn’t help. But, with a fleet of them, a computer could readjust for changes much more quickly. Say, you want a pickup at 7:30 instead of your usual 8:30. Maybe there is another van that goes near your house then, and has an empty seat. It can pick you up instead of your usual ride. A dispatcher could do the same thing, but probably not as efficiently. Plus, the odds of having more available vans would likely go up once there are more autonomous vehicles.
Edit: I’d consider van/bus pool as a complement to single rider autonomous vehicles, and it would likely make the most sense for a single company to have a mix of both in their fleet. It’d be easier to handle rider schedule changes that way, they could just charge more of a van seat isn’t available.
On a completely different part of this issue, autonomous car service is a little scary to me. People tend not to take car of “shared” resources as well as their own property. In a cab, you have the driver to enforce at least some decorum. In a bus, you’ve got the drivers and all the other passengers to provide social pressure (I know this doesn’t work on everyone, though). If a solo rider in an autonomous car trashes it, there needs to be some way of handling it - or we’re going to need Fischer Price interiors for everything.
Like a bussing system, then. Still, with a simple app, you can see if there's a van pool ride available to you.
Still, how does automation change that? We already have fleets of vehicles to take people on a path. And a dispatcher is the exact same thing as a program that adjusts the path of a vehicle. You can have a real driver or an automated driver do the exact same thing.
Even more important- the option of that type of commuting has been around for as long as I can remember. How will automation make people choose it more? I don't see that changing at all.
mad_machine said:STM317 said:You've been able to summon a shared vehicle to your location for 100 years. They're called taxis. The only real difference that I see between these summoned/shared autonomous vehicles and taxis today is that there's no human behind the wheel, and the money is likely to go toward corporations rather than small/medium taxi companies.
Taxis cause lots of traffic/parking problems now. Taxis are shared with whomever and summoned at will right now. I don't see how any of this improves with autonomy.
You'll still be cramming a ton of vehicles with a single passenger into a small area at the same basic times every day Mon-Fri, and then there will be less busy times/more vehicles sitting idle the rest of the time.
but for a city dweller who just wants to go to work, it does beautifully. They wont need to have a single vehicle at their disposal that needs to do many things. Just going to work? Call a smar car sized vehicle. Need to run to the airport with luggage.. then call minivan. Cars used in a autonomous ride share program can be sized according to need. They also don't need to be pretty, just utilitarian. Nobody is going to be buying them for looks.. just like nobody buys busses because of how they look
All of that exists right now. How does automation change it? Other than not having a driver. Every driving service out there can custom fit the vehicle you need- including ride sharing. And, in many cases, the cars are hardly nice to look at.
Automation does not change that at all, other than taking a job away from people.
eastsideTim said:In reply to alfadriver :
If there’s only a single van it doesn’t help. But, with a fleet of them, a computer could readjust for changes much more quickly. Say, you want a pickup at 7:30 instead of your usual 8:30. Maybe there is another van that goes near your house then, and has an empty seat. It can pick you up instead of your usual ride. A dispatcher could do the same thing, but probably not as efficiently. Plus, the odds of having more available vans would likely go up once there are more autonomous vehicles.
Edit: I’d consider van/bus pool as a complement to single rider autonomous vehicles, and it would likely make the most sense for a single company to have a mix of both in their fleet. It’d be easier to handle rider schedule changes that way, they could just charge more if a van seat isn’t available.
On a completely different part of this issue, autonomous car service is a little scary to me. People tend not to take car of “shared” resources as well as their own property. In a cab, you have the driver to enforce at least some decorum. In a bus, you’ve got the drivers and all the other passengers to provide social pressure (I know this doesn’t work on everyone, though). If a solo rider in an autonomous car trashes it, there needs to be some way of handling it - or we’re going to need Fischer Price interiors for everything.
Good comment regarding mess in cars. Luckily there is a simple answer. Camera’s. Just like facial recognition can detect different faces. Camera’s in Autonomous vehicles will detect trash and add a an addition charge to your credit card.
The next person to use the vehicle can reject it or pick up the trash and put it in the bin provided for a discount on the trip charge.
alfadriver said:mad_machine said:STM317 said:You've been able to summon a shared vehicle to your location for 100 years. They're called taxis. The only real difference that I see between these summoned/shared autonomous vehicles and taxis today is that there's no human behind the wheel, and the money is likely to go toward corporations rather than small/medium taxi companies.
Taxis cause lots of traffic/parking problems now. Taxis are shared with whomever and summoned at will right now. I don't see how any of this improves with autonomy.
You'll still be cramming a ton of vehicles with a single passenger into a small area at the same basic times every day Mon-Fri, and then there will be less busy times/more vehicles sitting idle the rest of the time.
but for a city dweller who just wants to go to work, it does beautifully. They wont need to have a single vehicle at their disposal that needs to do many things. Just going to work? Call a smar car sized vehicle. Need to run to the airport with luggage.. then call minivan. Cars used in a autonomous ride share program can be sized according to need. They also don't need to be pretty, just utilitarian. Nobody is going to be buying them for looks.. just like nobody buys busses because of how they look
All of that exists right now. How does automation change it? Other than not having a driver. Every driving service out there can custom fit the vehicle you need- including ride sharing. And, in many cases, the cars are hardly nice to look at.
Automation does not change that at all, other than taking a job away from people.
Great call on taking jobs away. Automation has cost an estimated 5 million jobs already in factories and offices, in the last decade. More, much more is on its way. That doesn’t count jobs that went overseas.
As AI becomes more and more in use even middle management and senior management will be replaced.
I’d like to say, don’t worry, be happy. Here is the solution, but I don’t have one, except to say the Luddite ‘s didn’t see the solution to the upcoming steam engines either.
By the comments here debating car /van pooling it seems that most have not tried Uber pool or the lyft equivalent... with more people using it it only gets more efficient and less inconvenient for the passengers (in terms of time spent going a little out of the way to pick up or drop someone)
I’m just saying that a computer will probably be able to handle scheduling faster than a dispatcher. As for disrupting other rider’s schedules when a single rider has a schedule change, I’d say that’s a matter of some sort of level of service agreement. There could be an agreed upon pickup window, and a planned arrival window (subject to traffic/maintenance problems). If a regular rider changes their schedule in a manner that would not work with the normal ride(ie. other passengers) they could get rescheduled onto a different van, or failing that, get bumped into a (more expensive) individual autonomous vehicle.
I see it as a continuum, not an either/or choice
This only works if the cost per mile also drops from the top of the list to the bottom.
All this is pretty much just academic, though, as full autonomy is a long ways away.
frenchyd said:eastsideTim said:On a completely different part of this issue, autonomous car service is a little scary to me. People tend not to take car of “shared” resources as well as their own property. In a cab, you have the driver to enforce at least some decorum. In a bus, you’ve got the drivers and all the other passengers to provide social pressure (I know this doesn’t work on everyone, though). If a solo rider in an autonomous car trashes it, there needs to be some way of handling it - or we’re going to need Fischer Price interiors for everything.
Good comment regarding mess in cars. Luckily there is a simple answer. Camera’s. Just like facial recognition can detect different faces. Camera’s in Autonomous vehicles will detect trash and add a an addition charge to your credit card.
The next person to use the vehicle can reject it or pick up the trash and put it in the bin provided for a discount or the trip charge.
Yeah, you know people are going to do gross things inside of these taxis. Alone, together, whatever. Giving the customer the chance to refuse a ride that shows up dirty is all well and good, but it doesn't consider any value of their time while they take their chances and wait for another (hopefully cleaner) auto taxi to arrive. If you need to get to the airport, or work, or anything that's time sensitive that can cause major problems.
A big reason public transit often fails in smaller cities is that it's often no faster, and may actually be slower than just driving yourself. By the time you drive to the train/bus station, wait for the transit vehicle, ride the mass transit to the station closest to your destination, and then get from there to your final destination you've dedicated a lot of time to traveling, and that's inconvenient. If automated taxis are the same, in that they require significant time investment, or inconvenience the customer, then that's just another hurdle for them to overcome in order to gain acceptance. So they'll have different challenges in different areas other than the obvious geography/topography/weather/etc.
How many of you are visualizing cars that look like Smart Cars or Fiat 500s in your view of what an autonomous vehicle is going to look like? Because when I envision them, that is what I am picturing.
In reply to STM317 :
Valid point regarding time. The solution is set limits on the camera. Above a certain level of mess the car goes in for cleaning automatically. ( at previous customers expense) If the mess is below that level report to customer you have a level C just 7 minutes away and a level AA 11 minutes away.
You could also report charge levels, color, how recently washed, etc.
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