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> Just looking at the first problem, a four lane highway is a four lane highway, regardless of how vehicles comport themselves. Lanes are as wide as they are a

by glenra 8y ago

> Just looking at the first problem, a four lane highway is a four lane highway, regardless of how vehicles comport themselves. Lanes are as wide as they are and following distances are as long as they are because people are terrible at driving. A mostly-driverless 4-lane highway could more than double capacity just by reducing following distances when computers rather than human beings are making the decision when to brake and how hard to brake. Humans also cause traffic jams by causing accidents or rubbernecking at accidents - that'll get better too.

hodgesrm 8y ago
This would need some modeling to prove that you actually get that level of efficiency. Autonomous vehicles have a brownfield problem in that they would have to share the road capacity with conventional vehicles for a fair distance into the future. That consideration alone would likely reduce the efficiency gain considerably. On the other hand if you could distribute traffic flow vertically the potential for scaling goes up considerably. It's a hard problem to solve (read: expensive) but building roads is not exactly cheap either. BTW I'm not against autonomous vehicles. It would be great if they worked. But I think we're more likely to see near-term investment payoffs using it for incremental safety improvements, something that already seems to be happening.
chopin 8y ago
The basic problem is that generally more capacity invites more traffic. This isn't solved with autonomous vehicles. As well I expect more empty traffic. Example: I currently drive to work 20km. As my wife needs occasionally as well, we have two. With an autonomous car we could forgo one and I send it back after I arrive at work. In the evening it'll pick me up again.
- glenra 8y ago
  In cities a substantial fraction of traffic is people circling the block trying to find parking near their destination and some fraction of traffic holdups is from people stopping in a lane while waiting for somebody else to pull out of a parking space. These problems are substantially reduced with autonomous vehicles. Instead of slowly going around the block looking for a parking spot, you get out at your destination and the car drives away to some place where parking is cheap and a spot is known to be available. (When you need to leave, you tell the car via an app and it comes back to get you.) Self-driving cars can park far more densely without fear of being blocked in and can park inconveniently far away while still being reasonably available. Thus cities will need less on-street or near-street parking and can reclaim a lot of that space for traffic or transit or bikes or people or commerce. If your wife only occasionally needs a car, couldn't she call a local on-demand one - an automated uber? That seems cheaper than paying to send an empty car on two daily 20km trips...

by glenra 8y ago

hodgesrm 8y ago

This would need some modeling to prove that you actually get that level of efficiency. Autonomous vehicles have a brownfield problem in that they would have to share the road capacity with conventional vehicles for a fair distance into the future. That consideration alone would likely reduce the efficiency gain considerably. On the other hand if you could distribute traffic flow vertically the potential for scaling goes up considerably. It's a hard problem to solve (read: expensive) but building roads is not exactly cheap either. BTW I'm not against autonomous vehicles. It would be great if they worked. But I think we're more likely to see near-term investment payoffs using it for incremental safety improvements, something that already seems to be happening.

chopin 8y ago

The basic problem is that generally more capacity invites more traffic. This isn't solved with autonomous vehicles. As well I expect more empty traffic. Example: I currently drive to work 20km. As my wife needs occasionally as well, we have two. With an autonomous car we could forgo one and I send it back after I arrive at work. In the evening it'll pick me up again.

glenra 8y ago
In cities a substantial fraction of traffic is people circling the block trying to find parking near their destination and some fraction of traffic holdups is from people stopping in a lane while waiting for somebody else to pull out of a parking space. These problems are substantially reduced with autonomous vehicles. Instead of slowly going around the block looking for a parking spot, you get out at your destination and the car drives away to some place where parking is cheap and a spot is known to be available. (When you need to leave, you tell the car via an app and it comes back to get you.) Self-driving cars can park far more densely without fear of being blocked in and can park inconveniently far away while still being reasonably available. Thus cities will need less on-street or near-street parking and can reclaim a lot of that space for traffic or transit or bikes or people or commerce. If your wife only occasionally needs a car, couldn't she call a local on-demand one - an automated uber? That seems cheaper than paying to send an empty car on two daily 20km trips...