4 ms·

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.

by 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?
deleted 11y ago
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by scott00 11y ago

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?

deleted 11y ago

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