12 ms·

Studies are increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congest cities

81 points by monsieurpng 9y ago

jseliger 9y ago
Solution: Toll roads.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  or just ban Uber and Lyft
  - closeparen 9y ago
    Why would TNC passengers have less of a right to the space than car owners driving themselves?
    - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
      Banning Uber/Lyft doesn't take away their right to the space?
  - swozey 9y ago
    I live in a city that banned U/L for about a year. Nothing was improved. A bunch of companies popped up to replace them but they were absolute jokes and so much worse. DWIs went way up. People stopped going out. I don't think there were any net positives from it.
    - iamdave 9y ago
      Hrm. This sounds a lot like a certain city I just got away from. By chance, did your state legislation come down pretty much immediately and strip away the power of cities to regulate TNC's in their city limits? That was a real fun session of The Lege.
      - swozey 9y ago
        Yup. I'm actually on my way out myself at this point. I loved this place 6+ years ago. I haven't been happy here in the last few years.
        iamdave 9y ago
        You sound so much like me. Are you me? Are we both talking about Austin? I'm coming back in a couple of days to throw things into a big truck and say my final goodbyes. LET'S COMMISERATE
        swozey 9y ago
        Dude between paying $400k for a 1975 3/2 house that I also have to spend $700/mo in property taxes on (thanks to the Leges robinhood tax scam) and just generally antagonistic anti-Austin policies.. I'm done here. I've got some interviews in Seattle/PNW going on but I'm also interviewing in Dallas this week. I really just want out of TX. The fact that it's an 8 hour drive minimum just to go to another State or go see a forest kills me. 2011 Austin was amazing. Traffic wasn't the best but it didn't ruin my day. I'd go out and listen to bands at least a few times a week. Now everything's an hour minimum. Need a hose from Home Depot 3 miles away? 2 hours. I don't want to leave my house. I can't figure out if it's because I'm getting older and saltier or if the town has actually changed that much. Where are you going? Also seeing Austin pop up as some amazing place to live in every HN thread is just weird. I stay out of those because maybe it is just my experience but this place is nothing like it was when I first came here. The city council being vehemently anti-density means there are NO townhouses or duplexes in the city (they were illegal until 2016 because of SFH minimum lot laws, every SFH had to be on a 5700sqft lot). It's synthesized real estate scarcity. Houston and Dallas are the polar opposite. I can buy an incredible townhouse in Deep Ellum with a roof top patio, 3/3, year old for less than my old crappy house here 12 miles from downtown.
        iamdave 9y ago
        No I know how you feel, completely. I'm in the middle of transitioning back to my hometown of Indianapolis. Worse roads, less of a music scene, but the cost of living is much more tolerable...and it's my home. It's where I want to be right now. Funnily enough, I agree 200% with what you said about Houston and Dallas. Austinites LOVE to hate on those two cities, but...at least it seems like they've figured out how to actually be cities.
- donatj 9y ago
  The freedom of travel now being open to all, you declare 'Tax the poor! They're clogging up the roads.'? If anything I see this as a remarkable step forward for equality.
  - Eridrus 9y ago
    I see your point about taking the poor, but when a good is free, demand often outstrips supply, and when we're talking about city congestion, expanding supply is usually impossible, so the natural thing to do in a capitalist society is to increase the price. I think congestion pricing in NYC is inevitable, I just hope we also get more funding and competent management and contracting reform for public transport.
  - arcticbull 9y ago
    Why shouldn't cars be a premium product? Buses and subways are so much more efficient, and if Europe or Hong Kong is anything to go by, they can be nice, clean and faster than driving. If people want to spend the extra money to drive by themselves that is a luxury not a right, and we should be open to charging it accordingly. I feel ridesharing services have a place, but less so than then Zipcar. Lastly, I don't think that it's fair to call this a step forward for equality, as free parking throughout town is a tax on everyone who doesn't own a vehicle, or takes public transit, paid out to those wealthy enough to afford cars and their own parking spots at home.
    - IntronExon 9y ago
      When Parisian subways show up in NYC, then make your argument about shafting the poor because you’re currently not one of them.
      - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
        NYC has fantastic transit. Maybe not as good as Paris, but that is an extremely high bar to meet. Poor people already don't drive in NYC because it is already too expensive for them, so it is disingenuous to suggest that they are being shafted by making it more expensive.
- nradov 9y ago
  Ideally it should be dynamic congestion pricing so that the cost of driving on a particular road at any time is based on how busy the road is. Right now major roads are a classic "tragedy of the commons" situation.
  - notatoad 9y ago
    taxing a particular road will only divert traffic onto other nearby roads that are probably less able to handle high traffic volumes. I wouldn't want hundreds of cars driving down my residential street just because the nearby arterial street has switched over to congestion-pricing mode. congestion taxes need to be regional, not per-road.
    - chad_oliver 9y ago
      The best approach is to have congestion pricing applied to all roads, but with each road (or road segment) having its own price. After all, 'hundreds of cars driving down a residential street' is a case of demand exceeding supply, so we can fix it by increasing the cost and therefore decreasing the demand.
      - mrep 9y ago
        In a society with perfect information [0], I agree. However, people don't have perfect information so how would you coordinate millions of drivers about their different driving paths and their various costs? Not everyone has smartphones running GPS all the time. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_information
  - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
    > Ideally it should be dynamic congestion pricing so that the cost of driving on a particular road at any time is based on how busy the road is. Congestion pricing is like trying to put out an oil fire by pouring water on it. And then charging the poor 15% of their paycheck for the water. The primary reason there is congestion is that where people live and where people work are too far apart, i.e. there isn't enough housing near the jobs. Solve that and there is no congestion. Don't solve it and every other solution will be a new problem. You can't get people to take a bus to a place the bus doesn't go, and you can't build mass transit from everywhere to everywhere across a thousand square miles of sprawl. You can build multi-story housing near multi-story offices, and build both next to subway stations.
- BurningFrog 9y ago
  Paying for road usage is the solution to all traffic problems!
- AckSyn 9y ago
  Toll roads aren't a solution. That's what the taxes are for when you pay for gas.
adrianparsons 9y ago
This makes total sense. Uber & Lyft lowered the barrier to entry for private transportation. Instead of paying $20,000 for a car, I only need $10 and I can ride in comfort from lower Manhattan to Brooklyn.
- blitzo 9y ago
  Another point is, private car owners now has been incentivized to cover their gas tank so they can stay on the roads even more.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    I'm not following. "Cover their gas tank" ? You mean lock it in some way? Are Uber drivers siphoning gas from other parked cars?
- ntsplnkv2 9y ago
  > lowered the barrier to entry for private transportation. "private" transportation, with a driver who knows your information from his phone and can see your rating. Even when it is autonomous uber will know where you were and where you went.
dpflan 9y ago
Perhaps carpooling hasn't been incentivized enough: the current in-app economics for 'pooling' appears to be an increased time to destination but decreased fare (+/- social interactions with driver and passenger(s)). If congestion is a function of cars on road, car size, number of passengers, and path to destination, then perhaps shorter rides with more passengers in smaller cars should be incentivized more. This seems to lend itself to toll-roads/congestion-charges for different locations; this may be a gateway to a managed congestion area that is served exclusively by human-driver ride-share vehicles - could this improve congestion in those areas? “Why get on a bus with 50 people when you can get into a car and maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll be the only person in it?” Demand for "personalized" transport is here to stay.
- beguiledfoil 9y ago
  >Demand for "personalized" transport is here to stay. For those that can afford it.
- so33 9y ago
  A bus with 50 people is 49 cars taken off the road. Even with a self driving carpool option the bus still takes off 9 other vehicles (assuming 5 passengers in a vehicle).
  - ams6110 9y ago
    What is a 50-person bus with 1 passenger aboard? That is a very common sight in my town. There are a few routes that are heavily used, but the rest of them are just huge vehicles very inefficiently transporting a couple of people and blocking lanes of traffic and frustrating drivers at the same time.
    - lemoncucumber 9y ago
      Sounds like your town should consider following the example of Houston's recent reimagining[1] of their bus system. "The old system, like many bus routes in the United States, expended a lot of resources on very low-ridership routes for the sake of saying there's 'a bus that goes there.' The new plan says the focus should be to provide reasonably frequent service on routes where reasonably frequent service will attract riders. That does mean that some people are further than ever from a transit stop. But it means that many more Houstonians will find themselves near a useful transit stop." [1] https://www.vox.com/2015/2/18/8056039/houston-transit-reimagining https://www.vox.com/2015/2/18/8056039/houston-transit-reimag...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
schiffern 9y ago
Autonomous fleet parking has all the 3D density advantages of robot parking structures[1], but at dumb concrete prices. There's no aisle because there's no "random access" of a particular vehicle. No extra headroom (because they're identical) extra width (because they're precise), ventilation (because they're electric), or even lights. It's the best of both worlds. Where land is cheap, simply drive the cars along a space-filling curve in a parking lot. One possible path is a double-spiral. Picture these lines[2] as the curb (except there's no curb, or even painted lines). The spiral path is simple enough to calculate. One can rotate the whole spiral as viewed from above, growing and shrinking it and "wear leveling" across the entire paved surface. And the technique should generalize to any shape parking lot. I expect writhing double-headed masses of autonomous cars near urban centers soon. This design eliminates entirely any 3D architecture, at the small expense of some wasted space in the center determined by the turning radius[3]. Anyone know the most efficient shape would be in 3D (geometrically and structurally)? A helix is the obvious extrapolation, but I'm not convinced it's optimal. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_parking_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_parking_system [2] https://openclipart.org/detail/216988/double-linear-spiral https://openclipart.org/detail/216988/double-linear-spiral [3] edit: now that I think about it, you can park cars there too
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  > [no] ventilation (because they're electric) This seems... iffy. For one thing, my computers run on electricity, and they need ventilation. For another, I think it makes sense to have it be possible for humans to enter the car storage. On a similar note, it's a much worse idea to have your car constantly drive through the parking lot than to park it in the parking lot.
  - schiffern 9y ago
    >This seems... iffy. For one thing, ... At first I wrote "no oversized ventilation," but I shortened it during revision after thinking, "no, no-one would think I meant something so dumb." Thanks for the correction. :P Yes, there will be ventilation, emergency lighting, and access paths. Those contingency systems are still much cheaper and take up less volume than the corresponding full-time systems. >it's a much worse idea to have your car constantly drive through the parking lot than to park it in the parking lot You say that as though it's obvious, but why? Parking lots are $$$, and this ~quadruples the density. It's not like you're paying drivers, so the only cost is a tiny amount of electricity (a parking robot would certainly use more, since A) it's heavier and B) it moves faster). I also presume the vehicles will be stationary most of the time, allowing them to de-energize power electronics in the common case. Wear-and-tear at those speeds is negligible, and multiple "lanes" means that if a car breaks down the other cars simply drive around it. Heck, at those speeds the following vehicle could push a disabled car out of a bottleneck (mature shared-use vehicle designs will likely feature non-scratch bumpers).
bparsons 9y ago
Cars congest cities. Articles like this encourage policy makers to target users of ride sharing, while ignoring the obvious broader problem. If cities build appropriate multi modal transportation networks and restrict the amount of space allowed for vehicle traffic, people will walk, bike or take the train rather than drive. All three are preferable to being stuck in traffic.
- beguiledfoil 9y ago
  Even Seattle is seeing per capita transit ridership drops, odd considering expansion of rail lines. In an urban environment the car is what turns transportation into a game of the prisoner's dilemma. From this point of view ride shares are just the latest way that America has managed to extend the game. My desire is that we develop ways to make cities hospitable to carless families. That goal seems more remote now than it did in 2010.
  - mrep 9y ago
    Light rail usage has grown by leaps and bounds [0]. The reason you are seeing a per capita transit ridership decline is because Seattle is the fastest growing city in the country [1] so it's understandable why public transit rates are declining despite the huge investments. [0]: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/sound-transit-light-rail-ridership-continue-to-grow/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/sou... [1]: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-once-again-nations-fastest-growing-big-city-population-exceeds-700000/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-once-...
    - DrScump 9y ago
      because Seattle is the fastest growing city in the country ... it's understandable why public transit rates are declining I don't see how the latter logically resuls from the former. It seems counterintuitive.
  - lsc 9y ago
    >My desire is that we develop ways to make cities hospitable to carless families. That goal seems more remote now than it did in 2010. Eh, from where I stand (in silicon valley) being carless is way more practical now than in 2010; I mean, I don't have a child, so I'm not a carless family, but I've gotten rid of my car and more than half of my 'ride sharing' trips are in the actual 'ride sharing' mode where they can pick up other people. I take fewer trips in general (I now use grocery delivery, etc..) and I'm having a hard time seeing how my use of ridesharing services instead of driving myself could increase traffic, unless ride shares spend more time driving empty than they spend driving two-up, which isn't my perception. Ride sharing services do make public transit marginally more useful. I usually use the train to get to SF, but because they shut down so early, I usually come home on a rideshare. Before rideshare, I'd have to drive to SF both ways or get a hotel 'cause the train back would be closed by the time I wanted to come home.
hasbroslasher 9y ago
I'd like to propose the following: public-private ride share. In short, US Federal Gov't buys or finances the development of ride-sharing software and licenses it to cities. Cities act as Uber does now, skimming a (much smaller) percentage of their revenue as a tax, adjusting the variables in favor of local interests (e.g. incentivizing carpooling or service in lower-income areas), and studying the ways that ride sharing can complement existing transit options. I know that's a socialist longshot in capitalist America, but I really think that going forward the government is going to have to take a larger stake in tech in order to avoid the types of conflicts we've been seeing between private companies and public interests.
- csydas 9y ago
  After having lived in Russia for a bit, I'm mildly surprised that a US equivalent of Marshrutki [1] haven't really popped up in US cities. While St. Petersburg and Moscow have really well built out public transit systems, the urban sprawl and construction of the cities just doesn't allow for access by anything but non-bus-sized vehicles. The tl;dr of the wiki link below is imagine a passenger van that runs a fixed route - you can board or exit anywhere along the route by signaling the driver, and while slightly more expensive than public transit, you get the benefit of flexibility. Here in SPB the marshrutki usually run parallel to major routes for a bit then deviate to hit residential areas or give fast-access to shopping centers, and combined with public transport you have just about everything you need to get around fast and conveniently. I suppose that such a system would suffer from the same issue of "everyone already has a car" that public transit in the US does, but it's a nice trade off. (An aside, it's also a thrill ride each time, but when you need to get 10 km in a few minutes and have no care for your well-being, it's the best way to travel) [1] = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka
brownbat 9y ago
Can driverless taxi and quadcopter technology have a risky love child already and let us hurtle towards a future where roads are rare, landing pads are ubiquitous, and the swarm of rush hour commuters blots out the sun? C'mon Elon, get on it!
- Eridrus 9y ago
  Has anyone done a serious analysis of the scalability of air taxis? I assume it would be better than with roads, but air capacity is not infinite, and you can only land a small amount of taxis on top of a building at a time. Many buildings probably can't even support a single landing spot.
  - gaius 9y ago
    Has anyone done a serious analysis of the scalability of air taxis You mean... helicopters? Because they already exist and have limited use cases.
    - Eridrus 9y ago
      No, I mean the self-flying electric vertical takeoff drones people are building that I'm pretty sure the GP was talking about, eg http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4444874/Uber-looks-soar-flying-taxis-2020.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4444874/Uber-... https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/1/16961688/airbus-vahana-evtol-first-test-flight https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/1/16961688/airbus-vahana-evt... http://www.ibtimes.com/google-founder-larry-page-funding-flying-car-companies-zeeaero-kitty-hawk-2380033 http://www.ibtimes.com/google-founder-larry-page-funding-fly... Etc I don't know how seriously to take all these projects, but they are clearly quite different to helicopters.
- plasticchris 9y ago
  I thought much the same but quadcopters are too slow for an effective solution.
ensei5459 9y ago
Can confirm with intuitive certainty. For 2 days in Q4 of 2017 here in Bangalore, India, the ride sharing companies (Uber and Ola) were on a strike and those 2 days were the best in terms of traffic (or the lack of it) for us. I'm sure a small segment of the population decided to work-from-home, but since it was bang in the middle of the week, I'm sure most of them availed public transport like buses or used their two wheelers. Of course, some of them used their own cars, but even if they did, it did not reflect in the form of enhanced or even the usual amount of traffic. I've been thinking about this ever since and it feels bittersweet to read this. The validation is good, but the fact that it's actually true to some extent and not just in my head, is sad.
adrianmonk 9y ago
This is fairly obvious because it generates extras trips while drivers are en route to pick up someone and don't have a passenger. If everyone had their own car and infinite parking existed, these trips wouldn't exist. And those additional trips as to traffic. These services have advantages, but reducing the number of cars on the road isn't one of them.
echevil 9y ago
This result is not surprising at all. When these taxi service becomes much more affordable, more people will use them instead of other transportation and more people will be stuck in traffic. Uber has been giving me tons of discount last year, making it even cheaper than Muni, so I’ve been taking Uber a lot more than necessary. The reduce congestion, we need much better train system like those in east Asia so that people would love to take trains. Trains can also go much faster and they are much more predictable during busy hours
sankoz 9y ago
I experienced this first hand in Bangalore last year, when Uber and Ola (a company offering similar services) drivers went on strike for a week or so. Roads were much less congested during that time period.
gnicholas 9y ago
Kind of surprising they didn't mention Waze Carpool at all, since it is operating in a similar space and could help cut down on congestion. Since it doesn't pay as much as Uber/Lyft, it's likely to only encourage true carpooling—where people who were already planning similar trips end up riding together. Uber and Lyft are different because even if you have multiple riders going in the same direction, there's always a driver who goes to pick them up, idles while waiting for riders, etc. Related note: what would happen if Ubers/Lyfts/taxies couldn't use HOV lanes unless they had multiple passengers? It's always struck me as odd that a taxi can go HOV with one passenger, since the whole point of HOV is to encourage carpooling.

81 points by monsieurpng 9y ago

jseliger 9y ago

Solution: Toll roads.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
or just ban Uber and Lyft
- closeparen 9y ago
  Why would TNC passengers have less of a right to the space than car owners driving themselves?
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    Banning Uber/Lyft doesn't take away their right to the space?
- swozey 9y ago
  I live in a city that banned U/L for about a year. Nothing was improved. A bunch of companies popped up to replace them but they were absolute jokes and so much worse. DWIs went way up. People stopped going out. I don't think there were any net positives from it.
  - iamdave 9y ago
    Hrm. This sounds a lot like a certain city I just got away from. By chance, did your state legislation come down pretty much immediately and strip away the power of cities to regulate TNC's in their city limits? That was a real fun session of The Lege.
    - swozey 9y ago
      Yup. I'm actually on my way out myself at this point. I loved this place 6+ years ago. I haven't been happy here in the last few years.
      - iamdave 9y ago
        You sound so much like me. Are you me? Are we both talking about Austin? I'm coming back in a couple of days to throw things into a big truck and say my final goodbyes. LET'S COMMISERATE
        swozey 9y ago
        Dude between paying $400k for a 1975 3/2 house that I also have to spend $700/mo in property taxes on (thanks to the Leges robinhood tax scam) and just generally antagonistic anti-Austin policies.. I'm done here. I've got some interviews in Seattle/PNW going on but I'm also interviewing in Dallas this week. I really just want out of TX. The fact that it's an 8 hour drive minimum just to go to another State or go see a forest kills me. 2011 Austin was amazing. Traffic wasn't the best but it didn't ruin my day. I'd go out and listen to bands at least a few times a week. Now everything's an hour minimum. Need a hose from Home Depot 3 miles away? 2 hours. I don't want to leave my house. I can't figure out if it's because I'm getting older and saltier or if the town has actually changed that much. Where are you going? Also seeing Austin pop up as some amazing place to live in every HN thread is just weird. I stay out of those because maybe it is just my experience but this place is nothing like it was when I first came here. The city council being vehemently anti-density means there are NO townhouses or duplexes in the city (they were illegal until 2016 because of SFH minimum lot laws, every SFH had to be on a 5700sqft lot). It's synthesized real estate scarcity. Houston and Dallas are the polar opposite. I can buy an incredible townhouse in Deep Ellum with a roof top patio, 3/3, year old for less than my old crappy house here 12 miles from downtown.
        iamdave 9y ago
        No I know how you feel, completely. I'm in the middle of transitioning back to my hometown of Indianapolis. Worse roads, less of a music scene, but the cost of living is much more tolerable...and it's my home. It's where I want to be right now. Funnily enough, I agree 200% with what you said about Houston and Dallas. Austinites LOVE to hate on those two cities, but...at least it seems like they've figured out how to actually be cities.
donatj 9y ago
The freedom of travel now being open to all, you declare 'Tax the poor! They're clogging up the roads.'? If anything I see this as a remarkable step forward for equality.
- Eridrus 9y ago
  I see your point about taking the poor, but when a good is free, demand often outstrips supply, and when we're talking about city congestion, expanding supply is usually impossible, so the natural thing to do in a capitalist society is to increase the price. I think congestion pricing in NYC is inevitable, I just hope we also get more funding and competent management and contracting reform for public transport.
- arcticbull 9y ago
  Why shouldn't cars be a premium product? Buses and subways are so much more efficient, and if Europe or Hong Kong is anything to go by, they can be nice, clean and faster than driving. If people want to spend the extra money to drive by themselves that is a luxury not a right, and we should be open to charging it accordingly. I feel ridesharing services have a place, but less so than then Zipcar. Lastly, I don't think that it's fair to call this a step forward for equality, as free parking throughout town is a tax on everyone who doesn't own a vehicle, or takes public transit, paid out to those wealthy enough to afford cars and their own parking spots at home.
  - IntronExon 9y ago
    When Parisian subways show up in NYC, then make your argument about shafting the poor because you’re currently not one of them.
    - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
      NYC has fantastic transit. Maybe not as good as Paris, but that is an extremely high bar to meet. Poor people already don't drive in NYC because it is already too expensive for them, so it is disingenuous to suggest that they are being shafted by making it more expensive.
nradov 9y ago
Ideally it should be dynamic congestion pricing so that the cost of driving on a particular road at any time is based on how busy the road is. Right now major roads are a classic "tragedy of the commons" situation.
- notatoad 9y ago
  taxing a particular road will only divert traffic onto other nearby roads that are probably less able to handle high traffic volumes. I wouldn't want hundreds of cars driving down my residential street just because the nearby arterial street has switched over to congestion-pricing mode. congestion taxes need to be regional, not per-road.
  - chad_oliver 9y ago
    The best approach is to have congestion pricing applied to all roads, but with each road (or road segment) having its own price. After all, 'hundreds of cars driving down a residential street' is a case of demand exceeding supply, so we can fix it by increasing the cost and therefore decreasing the demand.
    - mrep 9y ago
      In a society with perfect information [0], I agree. However, people don't have perfect information so how would you coordinate millions of drivers about their different driving paths and their various costs? Not everyone has smartphones running GPS all the time. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_information
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  > Ideally it should be dynamic congestion pricing so that the cost of driving on a particular road at any time is based on how busy the road is. Congestion pricing is like trying to put out an oil fire by pouring water on it. And then charging the poor 15% of their paycheck for the water. The primary reason there is congestion is that where people live and where people work are too far apart, i.e. there isn't enough housing near the jobs. Solve that and there is no congestion. Don't solve it and every other solution will be a new problem. You can't get people to take a bus to a place the bus doesn't go, and you can't build mass transit from everywhere to everywhere across a thousand square miles of sprawl. You can build multi-story housing near multi-story offices, and build both next to subway stations.
BurningFrog 9y ago
Paying for road usage is the solution to all traffic problems!
AckSyn 9y ago
Toll roads aren't a solution. That's what the taxes are for when you pay for gas.

adrianparsons 9y ago

This makes total sense. Uber & Lyft lowered the barrier to entry for private transportation. Instead of paying $20,000 for a car, I only need $10 and I can ride in comfort from lower Manhattan to Brooklyn.

blitzo 9y ago
Another point is, private car owners now has been incentivized to cover their gas tank so they can stay on the roads even more.
- ams6110 9y ago
  I'm not following. "Cover their gas tank" ? You mean lock it in some way? Are Uber drivers siphoning gas from other parked cars?
ntsplnkv2 9y ago
> lowered the barrier to entry for private transportation. "private" transportation, with a driver who knows your information from his phone and can see your rating. Even when it is autonomous uber will know where you were and where you went.

dpflan 9y ago

Perhaps carpooling hasn't been incentivized enough: the current in-app economics for 'pooling' appears to be an increased time to destination but decreased fare (+/- social interactions with driver and passenger(s)). If congestion is a function of cars on road, car size, number of passengers, and path to destination, then perhaps shorter rides with more passengers in smaller cars should be incentivized more. This seems to lend itself to toll-roads/congestion-charges for different locations; this may be a gateway to a managed congestion area that is served exclusively by human-driver ride-share vehicles - could this improve congestion in those areas? “Why get on a bus with 50 people when you can get into a car and maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll be the only person in it?” Demand for "personalized" transport is here to stay.

beguiledfoil 9y ago
>Demand for "personalized" transport is here to stay. For those that can afford it.
so33 9y ago
A bus with 50 people is 49 cars taken off the road. Even with a self driving carpool option the bus still takes off 9 other vehicles (assuming 5 passengers in a vehicle).
- ams6110 9y ago
  What is a 50-person bus with 1 passenger aboard? That is a very common sight in my town. There are a few routes that are heavily used, but the rest of them are just huge vehicles very inefficiently transporting a couple of people and blocking lanes of traffic and frustrating drivers at the same time.
  - lemoncucumber 9y ago
    Sounds like your town should consider following the example of Houston's recent reimagining[1] of their bus system. "The old system, like many bus routes in the United States, expended a lot of resources on very low-ridership routes for the sake of saying there's 'a bus that goes there.' The new plan says the focus should be to provide reasonably frequent service on routes where reasonably frequent service will attract riders. That does mean that some people are further than ever from a transit stop. But it means that many more Houstonians will find themselves near a useful transit stop." [1] https://www.vox.com/2015/2/18/8056039/houston-transit-reimagining https://www.vox.com/2015/2/18/8056039/houston-transit-reimag...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

schiffern 9y ago

Autonomous fleet parking has all the 3D density advantages of robot parking structures[1], but at dumb concrete prices. There's no aisle because there's no "random access" of a particular vehicle. No extra headroom (because they're identical) extra width (because they're precise), ventilation (because they're electric), or even lights. It's the best of both worlds. Where land is cheap, simply drive the cars along a space-filling curve in a parking lot. One possible path is a double-spiral. Picture these lines[2] as the curb (except there's no curb, or even painted lines). The spiral path is simple enough to calculate. One can rotate the whole spiral as viewed from above, growing and shrinking it and "wear leveling" across the entire paved surface. And the technique should generalize to any shape parking lot. I expect writhing double-headed masses of autonomous cars near urban centers soon. This design eliminates entirely any 3D architecture, at the small expense of some wasted space in the center determined by the turning radius[3]. Anyone know the most efficient shape would be in 3D (geometrically and structurally)? A helix is the obvious extrapolation, but I'm not convinced it's optimal. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_parking_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_parking_system [2] https://openclipart.org/detail/216988/double-linear-spiral https://openclipart.org/detail/216988/double-linear-spiral [3] edit: now that I think about it, you can park cars there too

thaumasiotes 9y ago
> [no] ventilation (because they're electric) This seems... iffy. For one thing, my computers run on electricity, and they need ventilation. For another, I think it makes sense to have it be possible for humans to enter the car storage. On a similar note, it's a much worse idea to have your car constantly drive through the parking lot than to park it in the parking lot.
- schiffern 9y ago
  >This seems... iffy. For one thing, ... At first I wrote "no oversized ventilation," but I shortened it during revision after thinking, "no, no-one would think I meant something so dumb." Thanks for the correction. :P Yes, there will be ventilation, emergency lighting, and access paths. Those contingency systems are still much cheaper and take up less volume than the corresponding full-time systems. >it's a much worse idea to have your car constantly drive through the parking lot than to park it in the parking lot You say that as though it's obvious, but why? Parking lots are $$$, and this ~quadruples the density. It's not like you're paying drivers, so the only cost is a tiny amount of electricity (a parking robot would certainly use more, since A) it's heavier and B) it moves faster). I also presume the vehicles will be stationary most of the time, allowing them to de-energize power electronics in the common case. Wear-and-tear at those speeds is negligible, and multiple "lanes" means that if a car breaks down the other cars simply drive around it. Heck, at those speeds the following vehicle could push a disabled car out of a bottleneck (mature shared-use vehicle designs will likely feature non-scratch bumpers).

bparsons 9y ago

Cars congest cities. Articles like this encourage policy makers to target users of ride sharing, while ignoring the obvious broader problem. If cities build appropriate multi modal transportation networks and restrict the amount of space allowed for vehicle traffic, people will walk, bike or take the train rather than drive. All three are preferable to being stuck in traffic.

beguiledfoil 9y ago
Even Seattle is seeing per capita transit ridership drops, odd considering expansion of rail lines. In an urban environment the car is what turns transportation into a game of the prisoner's dilemma. From this point of view ride shares are just the latest way that America has managed to extend the game. My desire is that we develop ways to make cities hospitable to carless families. That goal seems more remote now than it did in 2010.
- mrep 9y ago
  Light rail usage has grown by leaps and bounds [0]. The reason you are seeing a per capita transit ridership decline is because Seattle is the fastest growing city in the country [1] so it's understandable why public transit rates are declining despite the huge investments. [0]: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/sound-transit-light-rail-ridership-continue-to-grow/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/sou... [1]: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-once-again-nations-fastest-growing-big-city-population-exceeds-700000/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/seattle-once-...
  - DrScump 9y ago
    because Seattle is the fastest growing city in the country ... it's understandable why public transit rates are declining I don't see how the latter logically resuls from the former. It seems counterintuitive.
- lsc 9y ago
  >My desire is that we develop ways to make cities hospitable to carless families. That goal seems more remote now than it did in 2010. Eh, from where I stand (in silicon valley) being carless is way more practical now than in 2010; I mean, I don't have a child, so I'm not a carless family, but I've gotten rid of my car and more than half of my 'ride sharing' trips are in the actual 'ride sharing' mode where they can pick up other people. I take fewer trips in general (I now use grocery delivery, etc..) and I'm having a hard time seeing how my use of ridesharing services instead of driving myself could increase traffic, unless ride shares spend more time driving empty than they spend driving two-up, which isn't my perception. Ride sharing services do make public transit marginally more useful. I usually use the train to get to SF, but because they shut down so early, I usually come home on a rideshare. Before rideshare, I'd have to drive to SF both ways or get a hotel 'cause the train back would be closed by the time I wanted to come home.

hasbroslasher 9y ago

I'd like to propose the following: public-private ride share. In short, US Federal Gov't buys or finances the development of ride-sharing software and licenses it to cities. Cities act as Uber does now, skimming a (much smaller) percentage of their revenue as a tax, adjusting the variables in favor of local interests (e.g. incentivizing carpooling or service in lower-income areas), and studying the ways that ride sharing can complement existing transit options. I know that's a socialist longshot in capitalist America, but I really think that going forward the government is going to have to take a larger stake in tech in order to avoid the types of conflicts we've been seeing between private companies and public interests.

csydas 9y ago
After having lived in Russia for a bit, I'm mildly surprised that a US equivalent of Marshrutki [1] haven't really popped up in US cities. While St. Petersburg and Moscow have really well built out public transit systems, the urban sprawl and construction of the cities just doesn't allow for access by anything but non-bus-sized vehicles. The tl;dr of the wiki link below is imagine a passenger van that runs a fixed route - you can board or exit anywhere along the route by signaling the driver, and while slightly more expensive than public transit, you get the benefit of flexibility. Here in SPB the marshrutki usually run parallel to major routes for a bit then deviate to hit residential areas or give fast-access to shopping centers, and combined with public transport you have just about everything you need to get around fast and conveniently. I suppose that such a system would suffer from the same issue of "everyone already has a car" that public transit in the US does, but it's a nice trade off. (An aside, it's also a thrill ride each time, but when you need to get 10 km in a few minutes and have no care for your well-being, it's the best way to travel) [1] = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshrutka

brownbat 9y ago

Can driverless taxi and quadcopter technology have a risky love child already and let us hurtle towards a future where roads are rare, landing pads are ubiquitous, and the swarm of rush hour commuters blots out the sun? C'mon Elon, get on it!

Eridrus 9y ago
Has anyone done a serious analysis of the scalability of air taxis? I assume it would be better than with roads, but air capacity is not infinite, and you can only land a small amount of taxis on top of a building at a time. Many buildings probably can't even support a single landing spot.
- gaius 9y ago
  Has anyone done a serious analysis of the scalability of air taxis You mean... helicopters? Because they already exist and have limited use cases.
  - Eridrus 9y ago
    No, I mean the self-flying electric vertical takeoff drones people are building that I'm pretty sure the GP was talking about, eg http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4444874/Uber-looks-soar-flying-taxis-2020.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4444874/Uber-... https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/1/16961688/airbus-vahana-evtol-first-test-flight https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/1/16961688/airbus-vahana-evt... http://www.ibtimes.com/google-founder-larry-page-funding-flying-car-companies-zeeaero-kitty-hawk-2380033 http://www.ibtimes.com/google-founder-larry-page-funding-fly... Etc I don't know how seriously to take all these projects, but they are clearly quite different to helicopters.
plasticchris 9y ago
I thought much the same but quadcopters are too slow for an effective solution.

ensei5459 9y ago

Can confirm with intuitive certainty. For 2 days in Q4 of 2017 here in Bangalore, India, the ride sharing companies (Uber and Ola) were on a strike and those 2 days were the best in terms of traffic (or the lack of it) for us. I'm sure a small segment of the population decided to work-from-home, but since it was bang in the middle of the week, I'm sure most of them availed public transport like buses or used their two wheelers. Of course, some of them used their own cars, but even if they did, it did not reflect in the form of enhanced or even the usual amount of traffic. I've been thinking about this ever since and it feels bittersweet to read this. The validation is good, but the fact that it's actually true to some extent and not just in my head, is sad.

adrianmonk 9y ago

This is fairly obvious because it generates extras trips while drivers are en route to pick up someone and don't have a passenger. If everyone had their own car and infinite parking existed, these trips wouldn't exist. And those additional trips as to traffic. These services have advantages, but reducing the number of cars on the road isn't one of them.

echevil 9y ago

This result is not surprising at all. When these taxi service becomes much more affordable, more people will use them instead of other transportation and more people will be stuck in traffic. Uber has been giving me tons of discount last year, making it even cheaper than Muni, so I’ve been taking Uber a lot more than necessary. The reduce congestion, we need much better train system like those in east Asia so that people would love to take trains. Trains can also go much faster and they are much more predictable during busy hours

sankoz 9y ago

I experienced this first hand in Bangalore last year, when Uber and Ola (a company offering similar services) drivers went on strike for a week or so. Roads were much less congested during that time period.

gnicholas 9y ago

Kind of surprising they didn't mention Waze Carpool at all, since it is operating in a similar space and could help cut down on congestion. Since it doesn't pay as much as Uber/Lyft, it's likely to only encourage true carpooling—where people who were already planning similar trips end up riding together. Uber and Lyft are different because even if you have multiple riders going in the same direction, there's always a driver who goes to pick them up, idles while waiting for riders, etc. Related note: what would happen if Ubers/Lyfts/taxies couldn't use HOV lanes unless they had multiple passengers? It's always struck me as odd that a taxi can go HOV with one passenger, since the whole point of HOV is to encourage carpooling.