30 ms·

This is great news. There are two use cases that particularly excite me: * For commuters, get a ride from your own vehicle to work, and then have it park chea

This is great news. There are two use cases that particularly excite me: * For commuters, get a ride from your own vehicle to work, and then have it park cheaply outside of town (instead of paying for a parking spot close to work, which is common where I live). * Have a self-driving van with a bed, have it drive you to a skiing resort while you sleep. Go to sleep in the car Friday night, have it drive at safe speeds using smaller roads, wake up where you wanted to go. Go to bed Sunday evening, wake up back at home. Shower, dress, go to work.

dx034 9y ago
> For commuters, get a ride from your own vehicle to work, and then have it park cheaply outside of town (instead of paying for a parking spot close to work, which is common where I live). Not sure if I'm excited about that. This would double the traffic during rush hour. I'd sincerely hope they introduce a tax on vehicles driven without driver.
- Hello71 9y ago
  this would in fact decrease the traffic for two reasons: 1. self-driving cars make more efficient use of the roadway 2. parking lots could (partially) be converted into roadway, or even better, actual business, so there will be less road to "outside of town".
  - ginko 9y ago
    Both leading to more cars on the road, i.e. more traffic
  - dx034 9y ago
    Converting on-street parking can help to increase capacity but I don't think you can convert a lot of parking lots into roads. And where real estate prices are high, they're often underground anyway. Making more efficient use of the roadway is great but they'll probably not more than double efficiency (as long as not all cars are self driving and the road is also used by pedestrians), so doubling the number of trips will still increase congestion.
  - Sharlin 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
- dtech 9y ago
  Rush hour traffic is usually the heaviest in a single direction, the empty self-driving cars would mostly be going into the other direction.
  - xattt 9y ago
    Clearly, the solution is to let self-driving cars drive into town on the opposite side of the road.
  - jcranmer 9y ago
    One common mitigation for rush hour traffic is to steal some lanes from the reverse-flow traffic to give more capacity for peak-flow traffic.
  - Piskvorrr 9y ago
    ...if there's ten of them. If there's 1000 of them, now the rush hour traffic is both ways. That is the expected scenario, not "I have my very special car like nobody else has."
    - adrianmonk 9y ago
      The self-driving cars are not in a hurry to get to their parking space. The commuters don't want to be late for a meeting, but the self-driving cars don't care about being late for a parking space.
      - Piskvorrr 9y ago
        Yes, and...? Doesn't change the fact that they're creating congestion (not only for themselves but also for other road users); plus the return trip can be expected to be "pick me up at $location at $time", which is again a scheduling problem.
  - delecti 9y ago
    Rush hour traffic in that single direction might get heavier if the drivers of single occupant cars can do other things with their time. It simultaneously removes some of the disincentive of a long commute, and also removes much of the benefit of not being the driver.
- alphamonster 9y ago
  Not if the route is well designed. One of my colleagues at Stanford developed an algorithm which can `rebalance' without increasing congestion: https://asl.stanford.edu/wp-content/papercite-data/pdf/Rossi.Zhang.Hindy.Pavone.AURO17.pdf https://asl.stanford.edu/wp-content/papercite-data/pdf/Rossi...
  - dx034 9y ago
    That might work in theory but I doubt it'd work in practice. You already now get Google Maps congestion of small roads that happen to be the fastest according to Google maps. I don't think vendors will be able to develop a fleet that intelligently coordinates routes. Especially because that'd make routes of some cars slower, not something people would accept.
- joshstrange 9y ago
  > I'd sincerely hope they introduce a tax on vehicles driven without driver. I sincerely hope they do the exact opposite. Taxes are often added to behaviors the state wants to limit (ie. Sin tax on Alcohol/Cigarettes/etc), it would be in everyone's best interest to convert to driverless cars so the tax should be on people without driverless cars and/or more importantly on people who don't carpool.
  - xigency 9y ago
    I think the intention was to say self-driving vehicles with no passengers, though I could be wrong. The reason being that a car driving itself around with no one in it is essentially wasting resources and spewing out emissions. The example comes up often in what-ifs about self-driving cars.
    - joshstrange 9y ago
      Ahh, well that I can get behind IF they are in congested traffic because one of the big advantages of driverless cars is mine can drop me off at work then go park in a charging garage across town. I wouldn't want to be taxed for my car driving on a wide-open road to a more efficient location.
      - chillacy 9y ago
        You'll still pay for it indirectly through the cost of gas and putting miles on your car though. Which is the ideal way to "tax" usage anyways.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - dx034 9y ago
    Sorry, I meant empty cars. Even though that would create a job market where you pay people to sit in a car to avoid taxes (hire teenagers for that?), so maybe just tax cars by miles driven instead of on a fixed basis. The only reason we don't tax by usage is because we don't have the data. If cars have that data, it would be by far the superior system. Why tax someone driving 100mi the same as someone driving 100k miles?
- zjaffee 9y ago
  What we really need to do is encourage self driving cars as being a form of shared transit, not something that people sleep in, with massive taxes on usage not involving high occupancy. Self driving vehicles allow ride-sharing to be far more effective as you won't have to pay for the cost of the driver. Right now bus routes are studied, and are used less often than they could be due to the last mile problem, and should we grow the scale of HOV lanes, ride sharing will be further encouraged. We could take a fleet of minibuses and focus on the real time optimization problem, rather than making car travel more luxurious but also make congestion far worse.
- nashashmi 9y ago
  Maybe they could be forced to take the slow route. Or lane.
tialaramex 9y ago
Park-and-ride schemes are a much more sensible solution to the former. Public transit runs at high frequencies from parking places on the outskirts into the city centre. You park, walk a short distance to a tram stop, bus stop or whatever, get on, ride to work in the city. In the evening you reverse the process. The density possible is much higher with this approach than if everybody has a car, even a self-driving one.
aleksei 9y ago
Regarding your first point, would it have to be your own car? Not to derail the conversation into whether or not you should actually own a self-driving car, but what if you just used a shared car for your commute? It would mean the car doesn't have to drive off to park somewhere, but to just go pick up the next person. I'd imagine it would be possible to have enough cars on the road so the wait is negligible, but still have markedly less cars on the road. Might this be a realistic future?
- danielbln 9y ago
  In before the usual "imagine how people would treat those cars": car sharing already exists in many cities, and the driver is usually asked before starting the journey if the vehicle is clean, and if it isn't, the previous driver will be billed/fined, so that's a solved problem.
gascan 9y ago
have it drive you to a skiing resort while you sleep Everyone within ten hours of a ski resort has already thought of that. Prepare for ski traffic to get several times worse, and lift lines to stretch up the mountain. Food, lift tickets, etc will also probably get more expensive if it becomes easier to avoid lodging, which is a critical revenue component of functioning ski towns.

dx034 9y ago

> For commuters, get a ride from your own vehicle to work, and then have it park cheaply outside of town (instead of paying for a parking spot close to work, which is common where I live). Not sure if I'm excited about that. This would double the traffic during rush hour. I'd sincerely hope they introduce a tax on vehicles driven without driver.

Hello71 9y ago
this would in fact decrease the traffic for two reasons: 1. self-driving cars make more efficient use of the roadway 2. parking lots could (partially) be converted into roadway, or even better, actual business, so there will be less road to "outside of town".
- ginko 9y ago
  Both leading to more cars on the road, i.e. more traffic
- dx034 9y ago
  Converting on-street parking can help to increase capacity but I don't think you can convert a lot of parking lots into roads. And where real estate prices are high, they're often underground anyway. Making more efficient use of the roadway is great but they'll probably not more than double efficiency (as long as not all cars are self driving and the road is also used by pedestrians), so doubling the number of trips will still increase congestion.
- Sharlin 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
dtech 9y ago
Rush hour traffic is usually the heaviest in a single direction, the empty self-driving cars would mostly be going into the other direction.
- xattt 9y ago
  Clearly, the solution is to let self-driving cars drive into town on the opposite side of the road.
- jcranmer 9y ago
  One common mitigation for rush hour traffic is to steal some lanes from the reverse-flow traffic to give more capacity for peak-flow traffic.
- Piskvorrr 9y ago
  ...if there's ten of them. If there's 1000 of them, now the rush hour traffic is both ways. That is the expected scenario, not "I have my very special car like nobody else has."
  - adrianmonk 9y ago
    The self-driving cars are not in a hurry to get to their parking space. The commuters don't want to be late for a meeting, but the self-driving cars don't care about being late for a parking space.
    - Piskvorrr 9y ago
      Yes, and...? Doesn't change the fact that they're creating congestion (not only for themselves but also for other road users); plus the return trip can be expected to be "pick me up at $location at $time", which is again a scheduling problem.
- delecti 9y ago
  Rush hour traffic in that single direction might get heavier if the drivers of single occupant cars can do other things with their time. It simultaneously removes some of the disincentive of a long commute, and also removes much of the benefit of not being the driver.
alphamonster 9y ago
Not if the route is well designed. One of my colleagues at Stanford developed an algorithm which can `rebalance' without increasing congestion: https://asl.stanford.edu/wp-content/papercite-data/pdf/Rossi.Zhang.Hindy.Pavone.AURO17.pdf https://asl.stanford.edu/wp-content/papercite-data/pdf/Rossi...
- dx034 9y ago
  That might work in theory but I doubt it'd work in practice. You already now get Google Maps congestion of small roads that happen to be the fastest according to Google maps. I don't think vendors will be able to develop a fleet that intelligently coordinates routes. Especially because that'd make routes of some cars slower, not something people would accept.
joshstrange 9y ago
> I'd sincerely hope they introduce a tax on vehicles driven without driver. I sincerely hope they do the exact opposite. Taxes are often added to behaviors the state wants to limit (ie. Sin tax on Alcohol/Cigarettes/etc), it would be in everyone's best interest to convert to driverless cars so the tax should be on people without driverless cars and/or more importantly on people who don't carpool.
- xigency 9y ago
  I think the intention was to say self-driving vehicles with no passengers, though I could be wrong. The reason being that a car driving itself around with no one in it is essentially wasting resources and spewing out emissions. The example comes up often in what-ifs about self-driving cars.
  - joshstrange 9y ago
    Ahh, well that I can get behind IF they are in congested traffic because one of the big advantages of driverless cars is mine can drop me off at work then go park in a charging garage across town. I wouldn't want to be taxed for my car driving on a wide-open road to a more efficient location.
    - chillacy 9y ago
      You'll still pay for it indirectly through the cost of gas and putting miles on your car though. Which is the ideal way to "tax" usage anyways.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- dx034 9y ago
  Sorry, I meant empty cars. Even though that would create a job market where you pay people to sit in a car to avoid taxes (hire teenagers for that?), so maybe just tax cars by miles driven instead of on a fixed basis. The only reason we don't tax by usage is because we don't have the data. If cars have that data, it would be by far the superior system. Why tax someone driving 100mi the same as someone driving 100k miles?
zjaffee 9y ago
What we really need to do is encourage self driving cars as being a form of shared transit, not something that people sleep in, with massive taxes on usage not involving high occupancy. Self driving vehicles allow ride-sharing to be far more effective as you won't have to pay for the cost of the driver. Right now bus routes are studied, and are used less often than they could be due to the last mile problem, and should we grow the scale of HOV lanes, ride sharing will be further encouraged. We could take a fleet of minibuses and focus on the real time optimization problem, rather than making car travel more luxurious but also make congestion far worse.
nashashmi 9y ago
Maybe they could be forced to take the slow route. Or lane.

tialaramex 9y ago

Park-and-ride schemes are a much more sensible solution to the former. Public transit runs at high frequencies from parking places on the outskirts into the city centre. You park, walk a short distance to a tram stop, bus stop or whatever, get on, ride to work in the city. In the evening you reverse the process. The density possible is much higher with this approach than if everybody has a car, even a self-driving one.

aleksei 9y ago

Regarding your first point, would it have to be your own car? Not to derail the conversation into whether or not you should actually own a self-driving car, but what if you just used a shared car for your commute? It would mean the car doesn't have to drive off to park somewhere, but to just go pick up the next person. I'd imagine it would be possible to have enough cars on the road so the wait is negligible, but still have markedly less cars on the road. Might this be a realistic future?

danielbln 9y ago
In before the usual "imagine how people would treat those cars": car sharing already exists in many cities, and the driver is usually asked before starting the journey if the vehicle is clean, and if it isn't, the previous driver will be billed/fined, so that's a solved problem.

gascan 9y ago

have it drive you to a skiing resort while you sleep Everyone within ten hours of a ski resort has already thought of that. Prepare for ski traffic to get several times worse, and lift lines to stretch up the mountain. Food, lift tickets, etc will also probably get more expensive if it becomes easier to avoid lodging, which is a critical revenue component of functioning ski towns.