4 ms·

The solution in the future will be driverless cars, shared driverless vans, etc. These should improve overall commute times, since there will be fewer accident

by pdq 11y ago

The solution in the future will be driverless cars, shared driverless vans, etc. These should improve overall commute times, since there will be fewer accidents and denser transportation. Also people will be able to spend their commute time reading books/news, doing work, watching videos, or other recreation, rather than driving the car.

darkr 11y ago
Sure, I mean if you want a WALL-E vision of the future. Personally I'd prefer a Netherlands/Denmark present day kind of future, where people live within 5-10 miles of their place of work and cycle or walk. Less apathetic fat people and psychotic auto-pilots.
- ktRolster 11y ago
  where people live within 5-10 miles of their place of work and cycle or walk. Problem with that idea is if you change jobs, you need to buy a new house. And moving that often can get lame.
  - darkr 11y ago
    Depends on the city I suppose. In London, most tech jobs tend to be clustered within Hammersmith-ish, Soho, and City/Shoreditch, all of which are in cycling distance of East London.
- continuational 11y ago
  I go by bike from west to east Copenhagen every day, a 25 minute ride, and it's awesome. I wouldn't trade it for any perk.
  - ams6110 11y ago
    What do you do when it's raining or snowing? What do you do when it's hot, can you shower at work?
    - leviathant 11y ago
      I walk two miles from my house to my office in Philadelphia. When it rains, I wear a raincoat. When it snows, I wear boots. When I first moved to the city, I took the subway during inclement weather, but after about two years, I came to just adapt to walking in all weather. In the summer, I'd take a few minutes to cool down. Other people, who biked, brought a change of clothes - but in our second building, we have a shower, and some guys used that as well.
    - Symbiote 11y ago
      I think this is like asking a Texan how they cope with rain (turn the wipers on) or heat (turn the A/C on). Imagine getting the same puzzled look. Rain/snow: wear a coat, optionally overtrousers. Hot: go slower if you normally race in, and it doesn't get much above 20 degrees anyway.
- CM30 11y ago
  Problem is, property prices make that non feasible. Most companies tend to cluster around the same locations, so a lot of people want to buy or rent property nearby and eventually the prices simply become unaffordable. You can't build upwards or downwards indefinitely, and you can't build too far outwards because the 5-10 miles thing goes away, so people will always have to commute to their workplace. The population is too high and the amount of space too limited to make this a reality, at least in countries with a decent sized population.
scott00 11y ago
Driverless vehicles probably do have the potential to decrease accidents and allow better use of travel time, but I wouldn't bet on them reducing commute times. To the extent that they work to lower commute times with a fixed population of commuters, that will draw more commuters until a new equilibrium is reached. Studies of road building usually find that the equilibrium commute time reached is equal to or higher than the old equilibrium. We may have a fighting chance if we ever get economic short range vtol air travel. Instead of a 20-50% increase in capacity like adding lanes (and probably driverless vehicles would be in this range as well) or a 5-10x increase (like building a highway), that might get us a 1000x increase in capacity. That might be big enough to move the equilibrium somewhere interesting.
- petra 11y ago
  >> Studies of road building usually find that the equilibrium commute time reached is equal to or higher than the old equilibrium. This is braess paradox, right ? the reason for it is non-optimal selection of routes by users, because of lack of information. But Google maps doesn't suspossed to have that problem because it has more(real time, per road) information.
  - benaiah 11y ago
    The problem isn't that people choose routes that are strictly non-optimal, it's that they choose routes that are optimal for them - essentially using a greedy algorithm to choose routes. This is why closing roads can actually improve traffic in certain scenarios. Google Maps won't solve this, unless it starts suggesting routes that are optimal for the network instead of the individual, which is unlikely as they cater to individual drivers. Truly optimal traffic would require central route planning of some sort.
    - petra 11y ago
      That's true. But don't you think Google take into account predictions of heavy load in otherwise optimal routes, guiding users elsewhere, and so avoiding the problem or at least decreasing it?
meggar 11y ago
Why not driverless drones, then there's no need for roads or trains.
Tiktaalik 11y ago
I don't really see how driverless cars will change the situation for the better. Assuming drivers licenses are no longer needed, the amount of people that can drive will dramatically increase, which could result in a huge spike in the amount of cars on the road. Any gains achieved by smoother traffic flow is likely to be dominated by this fact.
- maherbeg 11y ago
  I'm not convinced that's the case. I think smoother traffic flow could make a significantly larger impact than we think. Traffic jams will cease to exist if the flow is consistent.
- petra 11y ago
  >> the amount of people that can drive will dramatically increase Maybe it would double. But a self-driving van could easily(between many passengers/more efficient driving) could increase traffic capacity by 10x,
  - Tiktaalik 11y ago
    That's a pretty bold claim. What's your justification?
    - marcoperaza 11y ago
      Traffic is a compression wave. The car in front of you accelerates, then you accelerate, then the person behind you, etc. Same for slowing down. Self-driving cars would presumably synchronize, allowing all of the cars to start moving at almost the same time. Also, people don't feel safe driving at 60mph in a densely packed road, so they don't. This should be no problem for a computer, so you could have a densely packed highway but traffic still moving at very high speeds. Basically, flow velocity could remain constant as the highway becomes more congested. Another optimization that comes to mind is that on city streets, your car would route around traffic light timing.
    - petra 11y ago

by pdq 11y ago

darkr 11y ago

Sure, I mean if you want a WALL-E vision of the future. Personally I'd prefer a Netherlands/Denmark present day kind of future, where people live within 5-10 miles of their place of work and cycle or walk. Less apathetic fat people and psychotic auto-pilots.

ktRolster 11y ago
where people live within 5-10 miles of their place of work and cycle or walk. Problem with that idea is if you change jobs, you need to buy a new house. And moving that often can get lame.
- darkr 11y ago
  Depends on the city I suppose. In London, most tech jobs tend to be clustered within Hammersmith-ish, Soho, and City/Shoreditch, all of which are in cycling distance of East London.
continuational 11y ago
I go by bike from west to east Copenhagen every day, a 25 minute ride, and it's awesome. I wouldn't trade it for any perk.
- ams6110 11y ago
  What do you do when it's raining or snowing? What do you do when it's hot, can you shower at work?
  - leviathant 11y ago
    I walk two miles from my house to my office in Philadelphia. When it rains, I wear a raincoat. When it snows, I wear boots. When I first moved to the city, I took the subway during inclement weather, but after about two years, I came to just adapt to walking in all weather. In the summer, I'd take a few minutes to cool down. Other people, who biked, brought a change of clothes - but in our second building, we have a shower, and some guys used that as well.
  - Symbiote 11y ago
    I think this is like asking a Texan how they cope with rain (turn the wipers on) or heat (turn the A/C on). Imagine getting the same puzzled look. Rain/snow: wear a coat, optionally overtrousers. Hot: go slower if you normally race in, and it doesn't get much above 20 degrees anyway.
CM30 11y ago
Problem is, property prices make that non feasible. Most companies tend to cluster around the same locations, so a lot of people want to buy or rent property nearby and eventually the prices simply become unaffordable. You can't build upwards or downwards indefinitely, and you can't build too far outwards because the 5-10 miles thing goes away, so people will always have to commute to their workplace. The population is too high and the amount of space too limited to make this a reality, at least in countries with a decent sized population.

scott00 11y ago

Driverless vehicles probably do have the potential to decrease accidents and allow better use of travel time, but I wouldn't bet on them reducing commute times. To the extent that they work to lower commute times with a fixed population of commuters, that will draw more commuters until a new equilibrium is reached. Studies of road building usually find that the equilibrium commute time reached is equal to or higher than the old equilibrium. We may have a fighting chance if we ever get economic short range vtol air travel. Instead of a 20-50% increase in capacity like adding lanes (and probably driverless vehicles would be in this range as well) or a 5-10x increase (like building a highway), that might get us a 1000x increase in capacity. That might be big enough to move the equilibrium somewhere interesting.

petra 11y ago
>> Studies of road building usually find that the equilibrium commute time reached is equal to or higher than the old equilibrium. This is braess paradox, right ? the reason for it is non-optimal selection of routes by users, because of lack of information. But Google maps doesn't suspossed to have that problem because it has more(real time, per road) information.
- benaiah 11y ago
  The problem isn't that people choose routes that are strictly non-optimal, it's that they choose routes that are optimal for them - essentially using a greedy algorithm to choose routes. This is why closing roads can actually improve traffic in certain scenarios. Google Maps won't solve this, unless it starts suggesting routes that are optimal for the network instead of the individual, which is unlikely as they cater to individual drivers. Truly optimal traffic would require central route planning of some sort.
  - petra 11y ago
    That's true. But don't you think Google take into account predictions of heavy load in otherwise optimal routes, guiding users elsewhere, and so avoiding the problem or at least decreasing it?

meggar 11y ago

Why not driverless drones, then there's no need for roads or trains.

Tiktaalik 11y ago

I don't really see how driverless cars will change the situation for the better. Assuming drivers licenses are no longer needed, the amount of people that can drive will dramatically increase, which could result in a huge spike in the amount of cars on the road. Any gains achieved by smoother traffic flow is likely to be dominated by this fact.

maherbeg 11y ago
I'm not convinced that's the case. I think smoother traffic flow could make a significantly larger impact than we think. Traffic jams will cease to exist if the flow is consistent.
petra 11y ago
>> the amount of people that can drive will dramatically increase Maybe it would double. But a self-driving van could easily(between many passengers/more efficient driving) could increase traffic capacity by 10x,
- Tiktaalik 11y ago
  That's a pretty bold claim. What's your justification?
  - marcoperaza 11y ago
    Traffic is a compression wave. The car in front of you accelerates, then you accelerate, then the person behind you, etc. Same for slowing down. Self-driving cars would presumably synchronize, allowing all of the cars to start moving at almost the same time. Also, people don't feel safe driving at 60mph in a densely packed road, so they don't. This should be no problem for a computer, so you could have a densely packed highway but traffic still moving at very high speeds. Basically, flow velocity could remain constant as the highway becomes more congested. Another optimization that comes to mind is that on city streets, your car would route around traffic light timing.
  - petra 11y ago