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I think doubling down on mass transit is a mistake with automated vehicles on the horizon. It doesn't make sense to incur massive debt when the customers are g

I think doubling down on mass transit is a mistake with automated vehicles on the horizon. It doesn't make sense to incur massive debt when the customers are going to drive away. We should instead think about a system of tolls that has demand-based prices and that takes into account vehicle size. Tiny one person vehicles are going to be way cheaper than mass transit and there'll be no waiting, missed connections or end of service. They'll be as cheap as mopeds to operate. Point to point will work if we have a sensible pricing system. Instead of waiting in traffic, we'll wait at home until there is space for us. If we can buy a subscription and get paid to wait or go earlier, we can put an end to most traffic jams and keep people from driving into those that do occur. You might normally leave the office at 6:30 and drive 10 miles to your house. But if there's an accident and the "spot" price of your trip goes up, you'd be able to sell your trip for that day. You could make money by waiting. Or maybe you just take a bus. And by reducing the number of people that jam the roads at peak time, we can spread out the load and spend less money building for peak traffic. This is how many markets work, like the hotel market. They don't build a hotel room that sits idle 90% of the time so that nobody ever has to pay a high price for a room. They charge more at peak times and that makes some people change their plans to avoid the peak price.

bigdubs 8y ago
Or, we could just build more houses.
pietroglyph 8y ago
I think that the approach you outline doesn't effectively consider the waste and emissions of everyone having their own car (even single person), nor the increased inequality of paying more for peak times (you can only commute at reasonable hours if you're rich enough to pay for it.)
- stretchwithme 8y ago
  If it costs more for someone to start work at a specific time, employees will demand more to work for you. In fact, if you were to require employers to pay for that peak travel, it wouldn't really make a difference. Most employers understand that such costs affect wages and how much money they'll save due to having a road system that breaks twice a day. And most employees will think they are getting something for free. It's win/win. Or neutral/fooled into thinking you won. And these same employees don't realize that their commute is currently costing them a lot more in opportunity costs than whatever the toll might be.
- stretchwithme 8y ago
  In a world of automated vehicles, people wouldn't need to own their own cars. That will be, in fact, the more expensive option. If I rely on automated cabs instead of owning a car, I only pay a small part of the capital cost of that car. I also don't need a garage for it. Or a parking spot for it at work. And I can much more easily rent only the amount of car that I need at the time, which is not much when I am just going to work by myself. The total number of cars goes down. The average size of cars goes down. The number of empty seats goes down.
spookthesunset 8y ago
> I think doubling down on mass transit is a mistake with automated vehicles on the horizon. Alexa can’t even turn the lights on 50% of the time I ask it to. If we can’t even get something “simple” like voice recognition working right... sorry to say but the dream of fully automated, self-optimizing cars driving on futuristic intelligent roadways ain’t gonna happen for a long while. Self driving cars are orders of magnitude harder than me asking a computer to turn the lights on.
- icebraining 8y ago
  Honestly asking: why is self-driving orders of magnitude harder than voice recognition?
  - rspeer 8y ago
    The input is much more complex. Also, if you recognize a word wrong, nobody dies.
  - DrScump 8y ago
    Most of driving difficulty boils down to proper handling of all the edge cases, including hundreds of opportunities for human error. An error in voice recognition means you get shipped dowels instead of trowels. An error in automated driving can mean a dead family.
rland 8y ago
This sounds great and all, but we need a solution right now, not 30 years from now. If we built a massive, efficient, and effective mass transportation system right now, the big moving parts would probably be starting to break at right about the time that self-driving cars really took off in the best case. Because really, it is going to take some time to get that working.
- njarboe 8y ago
  Self-driving cars in there own lanes on freeways would work right now. Convert carpool lanes on freeways to toll for self-driving cars. Maybe let people get a special license with a special training course and, if they can drive like a self-driving car (no fucking around, always have the right following distance, etc,) they can also go in the toll lane. As more and more self-driving cars come on-line (and every major car manufacture has the tech to do this already) convert more lanes to self-driving only. If you really want to get crazy, relax the passive safety features of these self-driving cars and they can be made very inexpensively. Add cheap tunneling for future additions to the road network and cities can be super dense with individual, point-to-point, transportation systems.
- stretchwithme 8y ago
  Building more mass transit takes time. I can't tell you when automated vehicles will actually work. I think many people are overly optimistic about AVs. And naive about the risks they pose. But I do think they will eventually work and will profoundly change everything. What we should do is implement demand-based tolls for highway use and allow the marketplace to fill in the gap. We can get an efficient road system NOW. We don't need to invest more in command and control. We need a functioning marketplace. And that means dynamic pricing. Seriously, such a system is in use in Singapore right now. And they have far less gridlock and more vehicle sharing. And they are switching to demand pricing for taxis too. https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/authorities-approve-surge-pricing-option-taxi-operators https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/authorities-approve-su... With the rise of electric vehicles, we are going to have to change how pay for roads. We should implement a system that also helps us manage demand and that keeps everybody moving. The existing way of doing things is so bad, it's shocking that people continue to put up with it. It literally stops working twice a day in many places. That's completely unnecessary.

bigdubs 8y ago

Or, we could just build more houses.

pietroglyph 8y ago

I think that the approach you outline doesn't effectively consider the waste and emissions of everyone having their own car (even single person), nor the increased inequality of paying more for peak times (you can only commute at reasonable hours if you're rich enough to pay for it.)

stretchwithme 8y ago
If it costs more for someone to start work at a specific time, employees will demand more to work for you. In fact, if you were to require employers to pay for that peak travel, it wouldn't really make a difference. Most employers understand that such costs affect wages and how much money they'll save due to having a road system that breaks twice a day. And most employees will think they are getting something for free. It's win/win. Or neutral/fooled into thinking you won. And these same employees don't realize that their commute is currently costing them a lot more in opportunity costs than whatever the toll might be.
stretchwithme 8y ago
In a world of automated vehicles, people wouldn't need to own their own cars. That will be, in fact, the more expensive option. If I rely on automated cabs instead of owning a car, I only pay a small part of the capital cost of that car. I also don't need a garage for it. Or a parking spot for it at work. And I can much more easily rent only the amount of car that I need at the time, which is not much when I am just going to work by myself. The total number of cars goes down. The average size of cars goes down. The number of empty seats goes down.

spookthesunset 8y ago

> I think doubling down on mass transit is a mistake with automated vehicles on the horizon. Alexa can’t even turn the lights on 50% of the time I ask it to. If we can’t even get something “simple” like voice recognition working right... sorry to say but the dream of fully automated, self-optimizing cars driving on futuristic intelligent roadways ain’t gonna happen for a long while. Self driving cars are orders of magnitude harder than me asking a computer to turn the lights on.

icebraining 8y ago
Honestly asking: why is self-driving orders of magnitude harder than voice recognition?
- rspeer 8y ago
  The input is much more complex. Also, if you recognize a word wrong, nobody dies.
- DrScump 8y ago
  Most of driving difficulty boils down to proper handling of all the edge cases, including hundreds of opportunities for human error. An error in voice recognition means you get shipped dowels instead of trowels. An error in automated driving can mean a dead family.

rland 8y ago

This sounds great and all, but we need a solution right now, not 30 years from now. If we built a massive, efficient, and effective mass transportation system right now, the big moving parts would probably be starting to break at right about the time that self-driving cars really took off in the best case. Because really, it is going to take some time to get that working.

njarboe 8y ago
Self-driving cars in there own lanes on freeways would work right now. Convert carpool lanes on freeways to toll for self-driving cars. Maybe let people get a special license with a special training course and, if they can drive like a self-driving car (no fucking around, always have the right following distance, etc,) they can also go in the toll lane. As more and more self-driving cars come on-line (and every major car manufacture has the tech to do this already) convert more lanes to self-driving only. If you really want to get crazy, relax the passive safety features of these self-driving cars and they can be made very inexpensively. Add cheap tunneling for future additions to the road network and cities can be super dense with individual, point-to-point, transportation systems.
stretchwithme 8y ago
Building more mass transit takes time. I can't tell you when automated vehicles will actually work. I think many people are overly optimistic about AVs. And naive about the risks they pose. But I do think they will eventually work and will profoundly change everything. What we should do is implement demand-based tolls for highway use and allow the marketplace to fill in the gap. We can get an efficient road system NOW. We don't need to invest more in command and control. We need a functioning marketplace. And that means dynamic pricing. Seriously, such a system is in use in Singapore right now. And they have far less gridlock and more vehicle sharing. And they are switching to demand pricing for taxis too. https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/authorities-approve-surge-pricing-option-taxi-operators https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/authorities-approve-su... With the rise of electric vehicles, we are going to have to change how pay for roads. We should implement a system that also helps us manage demand and that keeps everybody moving. The existing way of doing things is so bad, it's shocking that people continue to put up with it. It literally stops working twice a day in many places. That's completely unnecessary.