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You could also just reduce driving deaths by having better public transportation and reducing driving overall. Sounds like it would even be better in the long

You could also just reduce driving deaths by having better public transportation and reducing driving overall. Sounds like it would even be better in the long run.

tristanstcyr 9y ago
Or you could do both. The right tool for the job.
TehCorwiz 9y ago
Self driving public transportation could provide the benefits of both.
- lorenzhs 9y ago
  Driverless trains have been here for a while. They're great. With platform-edge doors, nobody can fall or jump onto the track, not to mention that they increase brake cooling efficiency and decrease air resistance (less air to push). But of course you weren't talking about trains. I see this sentiment a lot on HN that self driving cars are going to fix everyone's transportation woes, but I'm not convinced that they will. For example, they're never going to be particularly efficient at really high speeds, due to tyre wear (due to heat) and air resistance (which can be reduced by driving in a convoy, but not enough). Rail (or maybe hyperloop, who knows) will still be much more efficient for high-speed travel, not to mention much faster. So maybe the cars will all be going 40% faster on highways than nowadays, which is nice, but still only half of what rail can do, and even less for hyperloops. I don't buy the "it's gonna fix everyone's commute", either, because at the same time it's supposed to fix parking. So now you have loads of cars driving out of the city to park at the same time as you've got just as many driving into it. Sure, vehicle-to-vehicle communication and superhuman reaction times will allow for increased density on roads, but is it enough to offset the increase in traffic? And is the increase in miles driven and resulting road maintenance cost factored into the cost calculations? Damn right I want cars to drive themselves, and it's going to be fantastic. But I don't think autonomous cars are the panacea that many seem to see in them.
  - nsgi 9y ago
    Not sure what rail services are like where you live, but in the UK it's about 50/50 whether it is faster to travel between major cities by car or by train. Trains can go faster but this is often counterbalanced by needing to slow down to come to a stop, etc. There will always be places that can't be reached with public transport and even in cities like Paris renowned for their public transport it is often necessary to change several times as part of a journey. Many light rail services e.g. BART and the London Underground are completely crazy at rush hour and there are many obstacles to increasing frequency. A big challenge of self driving trains is ensuring they are able to stop in time if an obstacle is present, and this relies on fairly similar technology to that of driverless cars. Self driving cars would reduce traffic because they would reduce accidents and allow cars to sort themselves into slots automatically rather than waiting at traffic lights. You have a good point about rush hour traffic being increased by cars driving outside the city to park, although cars could park more efficiently in city centres if multi-storey car parks didn't need to allocate space for humans.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - iainmerrick 9y ago
      I'm confident in saying there's zero chance that self-driving cars, on their own, could replace the London Underground. Zero. The Underground (and commuter rail that feeds into it) carries a vast number of people every day. There's just not enough road space to get that many cars in and out, even if they were 2x or 4x more efficient. If you want to fix the Underground (although it works fairly well so it's not clear why drastic changes are needed) you need to start thinking about buses and bicycles, staggering working times to avoid rush hours, moving jobs outside the city so people don't have to commute in at all, that sort of thing. None of those actually needs AI. Self-driving cars (and especially self-driving buses and minibuses) can certainly be part of the solution, but they're not the solution.
      - StudentStuff 9y ago
        Where a train can move 20k+ people an hour in each direction, a standard road moves around 1k. Self driving cars will only make sense as chauffeur replacements for Uber, Lyft and Taxis, as even with a tripling in capacity, you'd still be wholly uncompetitive with rail. Nevermind the inefficiencies of enlarging roadways :P
loeg 9y ago
> just It's not as easy as you make it sound. Americans still want cars.
- scotu 9y ago
  ...because the marketing department tells them they do?
  - loeg 9y ago
    It's certainly a factor, but I think claiming that is the only factor is an oversimplification.
- TimTheTinker 9y ago
  Most Americans need cars. America is a vast land compared to European countries. Public transportation can only go so far. Some American suburbs stretch more than 80 miles out of major urban centers.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    Most Americans need cars because American urban planning has been for many decades built around cars. This, of course, is a solvable problem. (It has nothing to be with how big the US is, it has to do with how US communities are deliberately engineered.)
    - johncolanduoni 9y ago
      Solvable by what? Demolishing the suburbs? Building new cities in the middle of nowhere? A time machine?
      - StudentStuff 9y ago
        Definitely. Many suburbs need to return to farmland, we have paved over most of our prime farmland for shitty, rent seeking suburbs. Dense cities are cheaper to live in, cost less to maintain for everyone involved, and give people back time that is currently stolen from them during the average commute. You also end up with better infrastructure, lower taxes, and usually a healthier and happier population in dense cities. Suburban and exurban slum development with 1 to 3 stories and a 1 to 2 hour commute is destined to die, its just a matter of how and when. Detroit is one failure mode, while Livingston, TX is another (tax base could never support the infrastructure built), though the latter case is very common.

You could also just reduce driving deaths by having better public transportation and reducing driving overall. Sounds like it would even be better in the long run.

tristanstcyr 9y ago

Or you could do both. The right tool for the job.

TehCorwiz 9y ago

Self driving public transportation could provide the benefits of both.

lorenzhs 9y ago
Driverless trains have been here for a while. They're great. With platform-edge doors, nobody can fall or jump onto the track, not to mention that they increase brake cooling efficiency and decrease air resistance (less air to push). But of course you weren't talking about trains. I see this sentiment a lot on HN that self driving cars are going to fix everyone's transportation woes, but I'm not convinced that they will. For example, they're never going to be particularly efficient at really high speeds, due to tyre wear (due to heat) and air resistance (which can be reduced by driving in a convoy, but not enough). Rail (or maybe hyperloop, who knows) will still be much more efficient for high-speed travel, not to mention much faster. So maybe the cars will all be going 40% faster on highways than nowadays, which is nice, but still only half of what rail can do, and even less for hyperloops. I don't buy the "it's gonna fix everyone's commute", either, because at the same time it's supposed to fix parking. So now you have loads of cars driving out of the city to park at the same time as you've got just as many driving into it. Sure, vehicle-to-vehicle communication and superhuman reaction times will allow for increased density on roads, but is it enough to offset the increase in traffic? And is the increase in miles driven and resulting road maintenance cost factored into the cost calculations? Damn right I want cars to drive themselves, and it's going to be fantastic. But I don't think autonomous cars are the panacea that many seem to see in them.
- nsgi 9y ago
  Not sure what rail services are like where you live, but in the UK it's about 50/50 whether it is faster to travel between major cities by car or by train. Trains can go faster but this is often counterbalanced by needing to slow down to come to a stop, etc. There will always be places that can't be reached with public transport and even in cities like Paris renowned for their public transport it is often necessary to change several times as part of a journey. Many light rail services e.g. BART and the London Underground are completely crazy at rush hour and there are many obstacles to increasing frequency. A big challenge of self driving trains is ensuring they are able to stop in time if an obstacle is present, and this relies on fairly similar technology to that of driverless cars. Self driving cars would reduce traffic because they would reduce accidents and allow cars to sort themselves into slots automatically rather than waiting at traffic lights. You have a good point about rush hour traffic being increased by cars driving outside the city to park, although cars could park more efficiently in city centres if multi-storey car parks didn't need to allocate space for humans.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - iainmerrick 9y ago
    I'm confident in saying there's zero chance that self-driving cars, on their own, could replace the London Underground. Zero. The Underground (and commuter rail that feeds into it) carries a vast number of people every day. There's just not enough road space to get that many cars in and out, even if they were 2x or 4x more efficient. If you want to fix the Underground (although it works fairly well so it's not clear why drastic changes are needed) you need to start thinking about buses and bicycles, staggering working times to avoid rush hours, moving jobs outside the city so people don't have to commute in at all, that sort of thing. None of those actually needs AI. Self-driving cars (and especially self-driving buses and minibuses) can certainly be part of the solution, but they're not the solution.
    - StudentStuff 9y ago
      Where a train can move 20k+ people an hour in each direction, a standard road moves around 1k. Self driving cars will only make sense as chauffeur replacements for Uber, Lyft and Taxis, as even with a tripling in capacity, you'd still be wholly uncompetitive with rail. Nevermind the inefficiencies of enlarging roadways :P

loeg 9y ago

> just It's not as easy as you make it sound. Americans still want cars.

scotu 9y ago
...because the marketing department tells them they do?
- loeg 9y ago
  It's certainly a factor, but I think claiming that is the only factor is an oversimplification.
TimTheTinker 9y ago
Most Americans need cars. America is a vast land compared to European countries. Public transportation can only go so far. Some American suburbs stretch more than 80 miles out of major urban centers.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  Most Americans need cars because American urban planning has been for many decades built around cars. This, of course, is a solvable problem. (It has nothing to be with how big the US is, it has to do with how US communities are deliberately engineered.)
  - johncolanduoni 9y ago
    Solvable by what? Demolishing the suburbs? Building new cities in the middle of nowhere? A time machine?
    - StudentStuff 9y ago
      Definitely. Many suburbs need to return to farmland, we have paved over most of our prime farmland for shitty, rent seeking suburbs. Dense cities are cheaper to live in, cost less to maintain for everyone involved, and give people back time that is currently stolen from them during the average commute. You also end up with better infrastructure, lower taxes, and usually a healthier and happier population in dense cities. Suburban and exurban slum development with 1 to 3 stories and a 1 to 2 hour commute is destined to die, its just a matter of how and when. Detroit is one failure mode, while Livingston, TX is another (tax base could never support the infrastructure built), though the latter case is very common.