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A chauffeur. I currently pay the equivalent of $650/mo to park my car, catch a train, then a subway to get to my office. But the trains are frequently standin

by edent 10y ago

A chauffeur. I currently pay the equivalent of $650/mo to park my car, catch a train, then a subway to get to my office. But the trains are frequently standing room only, delayed, and noisy. My alternative is to pay around $300/mo to park my car, take a coach, then a subway. The coach is more pleasant (seating! WiFi! Power sockets!) but takes longer due to the various stops around town. In both cases, the services are infrequent. When I've worked in India or ZA, it's quite common to have a chauffeur. But that only works with the massive disparity in wages. That's less likely in the industrialised world. I could rideshare - but that's fraught with risk. I could take a taxi, but that would quadruple my cost. So, if you can find a way to make autonomous cars work in the UK - and can charge a per-journey fare - let me know!

Bartweiss 10y ago
I'm really curious what autonomous cars are going to do to urban planning. The demand for car-fleet services will rise as they become reasonable ways to commute, but that's not the whole story. Presumably there will be a lot of people who still want to own a car (e.g. for weekend trips), but no longer need to park near their office or a train station. If you have a short commute or predictable schedule, it'd be far easier to just send your car "home", or even pay for remote parking somewhere you don't live and use it like a privately-owned Uber. Great for reducing parking demand, but with the potential to create a weird reverse-commute of empty cars streaming out of cities just after 9:00AM. And on a similar note, there's a possibility of more congestion from circling traffic. "I'm just popping into the store quick, drive around empty until I get back". Exactly what someone with a chauffeur might do today, but cheap and easy. Hell, will we see a HOV-lane-equivalent arise on highways where non-empty cars get priority status? Or a reverse solution, where empty cars are low priority and have to keep right like semis? ...I've completely abandoned your point, but there are so many questions! It's going to be fascinating to see how universal-chauffeur traffic works.

by edent 10y ago

Bartweiss 10y ago

I'm really curious what autonomous cars are going to do to urban planning. The demand for car-fleet services will rise as they become reasonable ways to commute, but that's not the whole story. Presumably there will be a lot of people who still want to own a car (e.g. for weekend trips), but no longer need to park near their office or a train station. If you have a short commute or predictable schedule, it'd be far easier to just send your car "home", or even pay for remote parking somewhere you don't live and use it like a privately-owned Uber. Great for reducing parking demand, but with the potential to create a weird reverse-commute of empty cars streaming out of cities just after 9:00AM. And on a similar note, there's a possibility of more congestion from circling traffic. "I'm just popping into the store quick, drive around empty until I get back". Exactly what someone with a chauffeur might do today, but cheap and easy. Hell, will we see a HOV-lane-equivalent arise on highways where non-empty cars get priority status? Or a reverse solution, where empty cars are low priority and have to keep right like semis? ...I've completely abandoned your point, but there are so many questions! It's going to be fascinating to see how universal-chauffeur traffic works.