6 ms·

Sorry, I think this is just totally disconnected from the reality of the average American who lives outside of a major urban center. 1. Mom, dad, and kid all

by Merad 11y ago

Sorry, I think this is just totally disconnected from the reality of the average American who lives outside of a major urban center. 1. Mom, dad, and kid all need to go to work/school at roughly the same time. If they all have a 15-20 minute commute (well below average for many areas) and the destinations for all three aren't in the same immediate vicinity, we're right back to the family needing 2-3 cars. 2. Eh, no. Go to the mall or a shopping center parking lot and walk around looking in people's cars. The average person's car is somewhere between messy and a pigsty. IMO, this will only get worse with SDCs, since people will be able to do more eating/dressing/preparing/relaxing in their car without the need to drive. Not to mention the number of people who simply don't want random strangers using their car. Uber or Lyft would have to offer a significant fee before I would even consider it. 3. Vehicle owners are used to convenience. If I live in 20 minutes outside the city, then I probably have to wait 20-30 minutes for a ride to arrive before I even start my trip. Massively inconvenient, and not worth it. SDCs will definitely lead to change in American society, but I have to wonder if it won't completely backfire on some of these expectations, and actually lead to American society sprawling out even more into the suburban and rural areas. WFH is becoming a viable option for more and more jobs, and longer commutes will be much more acceptable to most people when the time in their car isn't simply lost time.

JumpCrisscross 11y ago
> If I live in 20 minutes outside the city, then I probably have to wait 20-30 minutes for a ride to arrive before I even start my trip Not according to studies I've seen, including the one cited in my original comment [1]. They map commute patterns, urban, suburban and rural, and take simultaneity and fleet access into account. In Ann Arbor, Michigan a "shared fleet [was predicted to] provide almost instantaneous access [fractions of one minute] to a vehicle with a fleet of only 15% of the number of privately owned vehicles that would have been used for these trips." In a rural study conducted in Germany, maximum wait was estimated at 5 minutes with fleet capacity at around 20%. [1] http://sustainablemobility.ei.columbia.edu/files/2012/12/Transforming-Personal-Mobility-Jan-27-20132.pdf http://sustainablemobility.ei.columbia.edu/files/2012/12/Tra...
- biznickman 11y ago
  Why not link to the study you are quoting?! Would be useful :)
- bduerst 11y ago
  The simulation you linked has a population density of 25,000 people per sq mile (New York City is 27,000 per sq mi.) It only accounts for trips internal to the city which already have low wait times with existing taxi cabs, and does not simulate the waits for trips traversing into/out of the city.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
gdubya 11y ago
1. Ok, maybe 2 cars if the locations are in completely disparate locations, but carpooling is possible. 2. User feedback could be a useful deterrent against messing up someone else's SDC, in the same way that both drivers and passengers can leave feedback with Uber today. 3. True, but one can adapt to this. Or maybe i'm just hopelessly optimistic... :)
- mtone 11y ago
  I don't own a car and instead use a ZipCar-like along public transit and cycling. My conclusion is that car sharing services are quite expensive. I can do no more than 3 or 4 short rentals a month before the cost start to resemble that of owning a used car. I do save money, but only because I drive a tiny fraction of what I drove when I did own a car. Of course, car sharing is not as efficient as SDCs that can move around and maximize usage, but even SDCs would mostly end up parked at night and off-peak hours. Coupled with your point #4, I'm afraid it won't be long before driving the current average yearly mileage using those services become massively, prohibitively expensive. I'm not sure how that would be a gain for anyone but the environment.
- Merad 11y ago
  People already have the option to carpool, and rarely choose to take it. I don't really see that changing due to SDCs...
  - ergothus 11y ago
    I don't carpool* because I hate having to be ready by an exact time each day, can't be done earlier and certainly not later. If I was using an on-call car service that I could ping 10 minutes before I'm ready to go each day, I can do that without triggering my concerns. *Note however: I currently commute by bus since I moved to Seattle, and I make up for hating being ready by an exact time by instead choosing a bus route that has a bus every 15 minutes.
monk_e_boy 11y ago
> 1. Mom, dad, and kid all need to go to work/school at roughly the same time. This is flexible for most families as school drop off usually happens before a parent (or both) go to work. Start times (school and work) are just arbitrary numbers. We changed our school start time to help with parents dropping off kids to multiple schools (primary and secondary schools) and then on to work (9:30 start is unusual but fine)
yggydrasily 11y ago
> Mom, dad, and kid all need to go to work/school at roughly the same time. That's okay, once automation really gets going, Mom & Dad will be out of work, solving that problem.
- skorecky 11y ago
  That's kinda the point. We all work too much right now as it is. http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/you-really-dont-need-to-work-so-much http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/you-really-dont-...
  - bduerst 11y ago
    CEO Anne-Marie Slaughter was just in the On-Point podcast saying the same thing (in context to work-life balance and family), that we have a bias for thinking the person who comes in at 6am and leaves at 6pm is a good worker. This bleeds over into decisions that affects other aspects such as telecommuting, paternity leave, etc.
    - mattlutze 11y ago
      Bertrand Russell wrote a rather famous [0] essay on it in the 1930's. 0: http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
      - bduerst 11y ago
        Russel is one of my favorites and I never knew he wrote this - thanks for sharing.
- lambdasquirrel 11y ago
  That sounds funny, but when you put this together with the known increasing costs of supporting suburban infrastructure, it's possible that that whole style of life will be outcompeted and put out of business in most places. Or it will become a poverty trap.
bduerst 11y ago
For rural and light suburban areas I wonder if we'll probably see more of a hybrid shuttle service with at-door pickups, not unlike school buses. Even without the wage-cost of drivers, individual taxi service may still be too expensive to match the lower demand.
- jonathankoren 11y ago
  Never lived in the rural area did you? No one likes buses, because buses are slow. They're slow because they make lots of stops that are irrelevant to your trip. As someone that regularly rode the school bus on a route that took an hour, compared to a 10 minute direct route. Fuck buses. Yes taxis, exist, but not many. The only people I knew that ever took them were people that lost their licenses. What you've actually described is a shuttle service. They exist everywhere. They're not popular because they're slow. Last time I took a shared shuttle from the airport it took an additional 45 minutes to get home than driving direct. They have more convenient pick up schedules and locations, but the transit times are almost as bad.
  - bduerst 11y ago
    I grew up in a rural area, thank you. The cycle of poverty is strong in these rural locations because of the lack of public transportation and the cost to maintain a vehicle to hold a job. There are plenty of low-income people moving to common destinations (city center, plants, etc.) that would use an on-demand shared shuttle service if it had at-door pickup. Having worked a couple summers on a factory line, we would set up carpools and pick people up along the way to work each day. Don't be a dismissive dick just because you personally didn't like your school bus ride.
    - MajorLOL 11y ago
      > cycle of poverty is strong in these rural locations because of the lack of public transportation Because? Really? Because someone has to buy a car? I think your feelings are in the way of your cognitive ability. >of low-income people moving to common destinations I'm sure there are plenty of low-income people moving to the suburbs/rural areas because they are being priced out of high density centers. Lets not forget, 5% of the population uses the bus, that's including major urban centers like NYC. Nationally, nobody uses the bus, its a joke throw back to a time before cars. Fuck buses.
greggman 11y ago
2 seems solvable with reputation? If you trash someone's car you're banned from the service. Also your charged for doing it. They can stick cameras in the car to verify same as taxis have cameras.
tilect1 11y ago
Of course the world or the way that you use cars would be different too... #1, work/school from home, optimized schedules, etc #2, you could get in/off the "car" in your own little capsule... #3, those fleets of cars would park at the most efficient spots possible by using big data so the wait times could be reduced significantly (or the wait could be eliminated completely if the schedule is known ahead).
stcredzero 11y ago
The average person's car is somewhere between messy and a pigsty. Give people an economic incentive for keeping a neat car, then you're going to see neat cars. This is clearly true for the current Uber and Lyft fleets.
- Tycho 11y ago
  Cars could make pit stops to get cleaned while the owners are not using them.
- lkbm 11y ago
  Additionally, Car2Go and other car sharing services exist and they seem to have figured out how to keep things clean enough.
- jmspring 11y ago
  "Current uber and Lyft fleets" -- they made a conscious economic decision. Maybe think about reality of life, a commute, family, etc. A friend with an incredibly smart 7 year old still has a messy car. Her daughter, despite the ability to read and understand things well above her age, is a 7 year old. The car is a mess. When it comes to these pie in the sky utopian scenarios, I wish people on HN would step outside and actual observe every day people.
  - Ntrails 11y ago
    >Her daughter, despite the ability to read and understand things well above her age, is a 7 year old. The car is a mess. Right, and that's a choice. It has nothing to do with "she's a 7 year old" and everything to do with "she's allowed to make a mess in the car". I was never allowed to eat in the car beyond the odd sweet, and I wouldn't have thrown wrappers or anything else on the floor on pain of death... I find it mind boggling that the child is blamed for the state of the car, when realistically it is just a parenting choice. There are 7 year olds with exceptional table manners even in this modern day, and there are 7 year olds I'm embarrassed to eat at the same table as. I'm fine with people choosing to have messy cars (mine oscillates between spotless and a dump over ~3 month periods) - but it's a choice and other choices can be made.

by Merad 11y ago

JumpCrisscross 11y ago

> If I live in 20 minutes outside the city, then I probably have to wait 20-30 minutes for a ride to arrive before I even start my trip Not according to studies I've seen, including the one cited in my original comment [1]. They map commute patterns, urban, suburban and rural, and take simultaneity and fleet access into account. In Ann Arbor, Michigan a "shared fleet [was predicted to] provide almost instantaneous access [fractions of one minute] to a vehicle with a fleet of only 15% of the number of privately owned vehicles that would have been used for these trips." In a rural study conducted in Germany, maximum wait was estimated at 5 minutes with fleet capacity at around 20%. [1] http://sustainablemobility.ei.columbia.edu/files/2012/12/Transforming-Personal-Mobility-Jan-27-20132.pdf http://sustainablemobility.ei.columbia.edu/files/2012/12/Tra...

biznickman 11y ago
Why not link to the study you are quoting?! Would be useful :)
bduerst 11y ago
The simulation you linked has a population density of 25,000 people per sq mile (New York City is 27,000 per sq mi.) It only accounts for trips internal to the city which already have low wait times with existing taxi cabs, and does not simulate the waits for trips traversing into/out of the city.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

gdubya 11y ago

1. Ok, maybe 2 cars if the locations are in completely disparate locations, but carpooling is possible. 2. User feedback could be a useful deterrent against messing up someone else's SDC, in the same way that both drivers and passengers can leave feedback with Uber today. 3. True, but one can adapt to this. Or maybe i'm just hopelessly optimistic... :)

mtone 11y ago
I don't own a car and instead use a ZipCar-like along public transit and cycling. My conclusion is that car sharing services are quite expensive. I can do no more than 3 or 4 short rentals a month before the cost start to resemble that of owning a used car. I do save money, but only because I drive a tiny fraction of what I drove when I did own a car. Of course, car sharing is not as efficient as SDCs that can move around and maximize usage, but even SDCs would mostly end up parked at night and off-peak hours. Coupled with your point #4, I'm afraid it won't be long before driving the current average yearly mileage using those services become massively, prohibitively expensive. I'm not sure how that would be a gain for anyone but the environment.
Merad 11y ago
People already have the option to carpool, and rarely choose to take it. I don't really see that changing due to SDCs...
- ergothus 11y ago
  I don't carpool* because I hate having to be ready by an exact time each day, can't be done earlier and certainly not later. If I was using an on-call car service that I could ping 10 minutes before I'm ready to go each day, I can do that without triggering my concerns. *Note however: I currently commute by bus since I moved to Seattle, and I make up for hating being ready by an exact time by instead choosing a bus route that has a bus every 15 minutes.

monk_e_boy 11y ago

> 1. Mom, dad, and kid all need to go to work/school at roughly the same time. This is flexible for most families as school drop off usually happens before a parent (or both) go to work. Start times (school and work) are just arbitrary numbers. We changed our school start time to help with parents dropping off kids to multiple schools (primary and secondary schools) and then on to work (9:30 start is unusual but fine)

yggydrasily 11y ago

> Mom, dad, and kid all need to go to work/school at roughly the same time. That's okay, once automation really gets going, Mom & Dad will be out of work, solving that problem.

skorecky 11y ago
That's kinda the point. We all work too much right now as it is. http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/you-really-dont-need-to-work-so-much http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/you-really-dont-...
- bduerst 11y ago
  CEO Anne-Marie Slaughter was just in the On-Point podcast saying the same thing (in context to work-life balance and family), that we have a bias for thinking the person who comes in at 6am and leaves at 6pm is a good worker. This bleeds over into decisions that affects other aspects such as telecommuting, paternity leave, etc.
  - mattlutze 11y ago
    Bertrand Russell wrote a rather famous [0] essay on it in the 1930's. 0: http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
    - bduerst 11y ago
      Russel is one of my favorites and I never knew he wrote this - thanks for sharing.
lambdasquirrel 11y ago
That sounds funny, but when you put this together with the known increasing costs of supporting suburban infrastructure, it's possible that that whole style of life will be outcompeted and put out of business in most places. Or it will become a poverty trap.

bduerst 11y ago

For rural and light suburban areas I wonder if we'll probably see more of a hybrid shuttle service with at-door pickups, not unlike school buses. Even without the wage-cost of drivers, individual taxi service may still be too expensive to match the lower demand.

jonathankoren 11y ago
Never lived in the rural area did you? No one likes buses, because buses are slow. They're slow because they make lots of stops that are irrelevant to your trip. As someone that regularly rode the school bus on a route that took an hour, compared to a 10 minute direct route. Fuck buses. Yes taxis, exist, but not many. The only people I knew that ever took them were people that lost their licenses. What you've actually described is a shuttle service. They exist everywhere. They're not popular because they're slow. Last time I took a shared shuttle from the airport it took an additional 45 minutes to get home than driving direct. They have more convenient pick up schedules and locations, but the transit times are almost as bad.
- bduerst 11y ago
  I grew up in a rural area, thank you. The cycle of poverty is strong in these rural locations because of the lack of public transportation and the cost to maintain a vehicle to hold a job. There are plenty of low-income people moving to common destinations (city center, plants, etc.) that would use an on-demand shared shuttle service if it had at-door pickup. Having worked a couple summers on a factory line, we would set up carpools and pick people up along the way to work each day. Don't be a dismissive dick just because you personally didn't like your school bus ride.
  - MajorLOL 11y ago
    > cycle of poverty is strong in these rural locations because of the lack of public transportation Because? Really? Because someone has to buy a car? I think your feelings are in the way of your cognitive ability. >of low-income people moving to common destinations I'm sure there are plenty of low-income people moving to the suburbs/rural areas because they are being priced out of high density centers. Lets not forget, 5% of the population uses the bus, that's including major urban centers like NYC. Nationally, nobody uses the bus, its a joke throw back to a time before cars. Fuck buses.

greggman 11y ago

2 seems solvable with reputation? If you trash someone's car you're banned from the service. Also your charged for doing it. They can stick cameras in the car to verify same as taxis have cameras.

tilect1 11y ago

Of course the world or the way that you use cars would be different too... #1, work/school from home, optimized schedules, etc #2, you could get in/off the "car" in your own little capsule... #3, those fleets of cars would park at the most efficient spots possible by using big data so the wait times could be reduced significantly (or the wait could be eliminated completely if the schedule is known ahead).

stcredzero 11y ago

The average person's car is somewhere between messy and a pigsty. Give people an economic incentive for keeping a neat car, then you're going to see neat cars. This is clearly true for the current Uber and Lyft fleets.

Tycho 11y ago
Cars could make pit stops to get cleaned while the owners are not using them.
lkbm 11y ago
Additionally, Car2Go and other car sharing services exist and they seem to have figured out how to keep things clean enough.
jmspring 11y ago
"Current uber and Lyft fleets" -- they made a conscious economic decision. Maybe think about reality of life, a commute, family, etc. A friend with an incredibly smart 7 year old still has a messy car. Her daughter, despite the ability to read and understand things well above her age, is a 7 year old. The car is a mess. When it comes to these pie in the sky utopian scenarios, I wish people on HN would step outside and actual observe every day people.
- Ntrails 11y ago
  >Her daughter, despite the ability to read and understand things well above her age, is a 7 year old. The car is a mess. Right, and that's a choice. It has nothing to do with "she's a 7 year old" and everything to do with "she's allowed to make a mess in the car". I was never allowed to eat in the car beyond the odd sweet, and I wouldn't have thrown wrappers or anything else on the floor on pain of death... I find it mind boggling that the child is blamed for the state of the car, when realistically it is just a parenting choice. There are 7 year olds with exceptional table manners even in this modern day, and there are 7 year olds I'm embarrassed to eat at the same table as. I'm fine with people choosing to have messy cars (mine oscillates between spotless and a dump over ~3 month periods) - but it's a choice and other choices can be made.