4 ms·

Will self driving cars be the panacea? Or merely a tool to make painful commutes more tolerable, for those who can afford them?

by Tempest1981 10y ago

ssharp 10y ago
Assuming every person replaces their car with a self-driving car, how much would roadway throughput improve as a result of smarter communal driving? The assumption is that the self-driving cars are a 1:1 replacement of human-driven cars and ride sharing does not increase or decrease.
- amyjess 10y ago
  The idea is that you'd use your commute time to do something other than drive. You could read a book, watch a TV show, play video games, etc. You could even take a nap if you wanted to.
  - sampo 10y ago
    So buying a house behind even a 2-3 hours commute will become doable. So people will start doing it. Perhaps briefly wake up after 5 hours of sleep, hop on and get the rest 2 hours of sleep in the car.
imh 10y ago
I'd bet it's somewhere in between. I think the determining factor is nuisance. People will put up with certain long commutes and high prices for a given reward. If tech makes it so we can accommodate more people going further at the same nuisance level, we'll probably do that instead of the same number of people at a lower stress level. People will keep moving in until it gets shitty enough to overcome their desire to be here, right? If so, then the level of shittiness is constant over time and tech.
sampo 10y ago
When commute becomes more bearable, more people will buy houses behind an even longer commute, so the total amount of miles commuted daily will increase.
aninhumer 10y ago
I think self driving cars might make public transport much more viable, by increasing the effective range of stations. An entire sprawling suburb could be served by a single station, with people taking self-driving taxi rides from their doorstep (timed to allow a short transfer) and then getting in another taxi to get to their destination. It would be almost as convenient, but people wouldn't be wasting tonnes of road space for the bulk of their journey. A service like Uber (or possibly Google maps) could even offer integrated tickets for the whole journey.

Will self driving cars be the panacea? Or merely a tool to make painful commutes more tolerable, for those who can afford them?

ssharp 10y ago

Assuming every person replaces their car with a self-driving car, how much would roadway throughput improve as a result of smarter communal driving? The assumption is that the self-driving cars are a 1:1 replacement of human-driven cars and ride sharing does not increase or decrease.

amyjess 10y ago
The idea is that you'd use your commute time to do something other than drive. You could read a book, watch a TV show, play video games, etc. You could even take a nap if you wanted to.
- sampo 10y ago
  So buying a house behind even a 2-3 hours commute will become doable. So people will start doing it. Perhaps briefly wake up after 5 hours of sleep, hop on and get the rest 2 hours of sleep in the car.

imh 10y ago

I'd bet it's somewhere in between. I think the determining factor is nuisance. People will put up with certain long commutes and high prices for a given reward. If tech makes it so we can accommodate more people going further at the same nuisance level, we'll probably do that instead of the same number of people at a lower stress level. People will keep moving in until it gets shitty enough to overcome their desire to be here, right? If so, then the level of shittiness is constant over time and tech.

sampo 10y ago

When commute becomes more bearable, more people will buy houses behind an even longer commute, so the total amount of miles commuted daily will increase.

aninhumer 10y ago

I think self driving cars might make public transport much more viable, by increasing the effective range of stations. An entire sprawling suburb could be served by a single station, with people taking self-driving taxi rides from their doorstep (timed to allow a short transfer) and then getting in another taxi to get to their destination. It would be almost as convenient, but people wouldn't be wasting tonnes of road space for the bulk of their journey. A service like Uber (or possibly Google maps) could even offer integrated tickets for the whole journey.