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Yes, everyone sees EV's as the way our of our mess, but that's only part of the problem - EV's will help with emissions, but not congestion. And then there's t

Yes, everyone sees EV's as the way our of our mess, but that's only part of the problem - EV's will help with emissions, but not congestion. And then there's the people that see self-driving cars as the way out of the congestion. But self-driving cars will make congestion worse, by making single occupancy vehicle trips cheaper and easier, shifting more people from transit to cars. But then each self-driving car doubles the number of trips, since instead of someone driving to work and parking, a self-driving car will drop them off at work then drive off to look for another passenger or parking outside of downtown, so 2 trips for one passenger.

Buttons840 7y ago
I came to this realization myself recently while reading Joshua Spodek's book "Initiative". He points out that making something more efficient will lead to more of that thing. Cars ("vehicles") are part of our larger economic system, and that system does little to limit commutes. Only peoples own dislike of commuting keeps commute times down. Self-driving cars will make long commutes more tolerable, and thus raise the limiting factor on commutes. I predict that if level-5 self-driving cars become a reality, we'll see a new type of dystopian hell, where it's common to spend 6+ hours a day commuting. It will be especially burdensome for those who are poor and have to drive their car manually. Suddenly I'm less excited about self-driving cars.
- munk-a 7y ago
  I really don't know how accurate that is - right now the US is weird about Automobiles (they were highly inflated in importance and as a status symbol by marketing) but it looks like that weirdness is fading as the younger generation is moving closer into city centers and has a much higher preference for public transit... I think that cars, whether there are level 5 self-driving cars to replace them or not, are just on their way out. City planning in the US is a mess though right now.
- fiter 7y ago
  Even people who do not drive (take transit) try to limit their commute time, so I would not expect to see these even longer commute times.
  - soperj 7y ago
    I knew a guy in Toronto that would do 3 hours each way. Seemed absolutely bananas, but there he was, every day.
kjksf 7y ago
I don't understand the "2 trips for one passenger". The car will pick up the closest human that needs a ride and the operator will optimize the trips globally based on where cars are, where humans are and where humans what to go. It's about as optimal as it gets. Yes, cheaper trips will lead to more trips and therefore more congestion. But there are also advantages of having a massive car network. There are actually plenty of roads for most of the time. It's only during rush hour that you have congestion (LA being an exception). Rush hour traffic happens due to people commuting to work, usually one person in a car. The density of rush hour traffic makes it easy to optimize. Without changing cars, we can put 4 people in a car, which is 2-4x better than the common commute of 1 person in a car. People don't want to share cars? Implement rush hour pricing scheme that heavily penalizes single occupancy (say, $4 for shared ride, $16 if you want a car to yourself). The next step would be to make mini-buses for rush hour traffic: at lest 12-16 person. Once you know the traffic patterns, you can optimize by building cars / busses with the capacity that fits the pattern. What makes it even easier is that rush hour traffic is stable: people go to work and back roughly in the same numbers, which means you can do long-term predictions and investments.
- Johnny555 7y ago
  I don't understand the "2 trips for one passenger". The car will pick up the closest human that needs a ride and the operator will optimize the trips globally based on where cars are, where humans are and where humans what to go. It's about as optimal as it gets. Unless commute patterns change dramatically, in the morning most people will be going downtown to jobs, there will be a few that live in downtown and go to jobs elsewhere, but by and large, all of the cars will be bringing in commuters from outside of down and dropping them off in downtown centers -- there will be no other human looking for a ride from that car. Without changing cars, we can put 4 people in a car, which is 2-4x better than the common commute of 1 person in a car. We can do that today, but we don't. It's not clear why a self-driving car would change that. How often do people take uber-pool instead of having a car to themselves? (I don't know the answer to that question). People don't want to share cars? Maybe they won't want to, but as autonomous cars become more popular, only the affluent will make that choice - a car is expensive, especially when it sits in a garage at home and work (that you pay for) unused for 22 out of every 24 hours.
elihu 7y ago
I think the solution to congestion is simply to have more medium-sized towns and cities that are desirable places to live and work. Congestion and high housing costs are symptoms of centralization. (Fixing this is easier said than done, though.)
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  What if the property of being a big city itself is what makes it a desirable place to live and work?
  - elihu 7y ago
    I think that's true. At least, big cities are desirable because of the network effects that come from bigness. Reproducing those same network effects in a small city would be difficult.

Buttons840 7y ago

I came to this realization myself recently while reading Joshua Spodek's book "Initiative". He points out that making something more efficient will lead to more of that thing. Cars ("vehicles") are part of our larger economic system, and that system does little to limit commutes. Only peoples own dislike of commuting keeps commute times down. Self-driving cars will make long commutes more tolerable, and thus raise the limiting factor on commutes. I predict that if level-5 self-driving cars become a reality, we'll see a new type of dystopian hell, where it's common to spend 6+ hours a day commuting. It will be especially burdensome for those who are poor and have to drive their car manually. Suddenly I'm less excited about self-driving cars.

munk-a 7y ago
I really don't know how accurate that is - right now the US is weird about Automobiles (they were highly inflated in importance and as a status symbol by marketing) but it looks like that weirdness is fading as the younger generation is moving closer into city centers and has a much higher preference for public transit... I think that cars, whether there are level 5 self-driving cars to replace them or not, are just on their way out. City planning in the US is a mess though right now.
fiter 7y ago
Even people who do not drive (take transit) try to limit their commute time, so I would not expect to see these even longer commute times.
- soperj 7y ago
  I knew a guy in Toronto that would do 3 hours each way. Seemed absolutely bananas, but there he was, every day.

kjksf 7y ago

I don't understand the "2 trips for one passenger". The car will pick up the closest human that needs a ride and the operator will optimize the trips globally based on where cars are, where humans are and where humans what to go. It's about as optimal as it gets. Yes, cheaper trips will lead to more trips and therefore more congestion. But there are also advantages of having a massive car network. There are actually plenty of roads for most of the time. It's only during rush hour that you have congestion (LA being an exception). Rush hour traffic happens due to people commuting to work, usually one person in a car. The density of rush hour traffic makes it easy to optimize. Without changing cars, we can put 4 people in a car, which is 2-4x better than the common commute of 1 person in a car. People don't want to share cars? Implement rush hour pricing scheme that heavily penalizes single occupancy (say, $4 for shared ride, $16 if you want a car to yourself). The next step would be to make mini-buses for rush hour traffic: at lest 12-16 person. Once you know the traffic patterns, you can optimize by building cars / busses with the capacity that fits the pattern. What makes it even easier is that rush hour traffic is stable: people go to work and back roughly in the same numbers, which means you can do long-term predictions and investments.

Johnny555 7y ago
I don't understand the "2 trips for one passenger". The car will pick up the closest human that needs a ride and the operator will optimize the trips globally based on where cars are, where humans are and where humans what to go. It's about as optimal as it gets. Unless commute patterns change dramatically, in the morning most people will be going downtown to jobs, there will be a few that live in downtown and go to jobs elsewhere, but by and large, all of the cars will be bringing in commuters from outside of down and dropping them off in downtown centers -- there will be no other human looking for a ride from that car. Without changing cars, we can put 4 people in a car, which is 2-4x better than the common commute of 1 person in a car. We can do that today, but we don't. It's not clear why a self-driving car would change that. How often do people take uber-pool instead of having a car to themselves? (I don't know the answer to that question). People don't want to share cars? Maybe they won't want to, but as autonomous cars become more popular, only the affluent will make that choice - a car is expensive, especially when it sits in a garage at home and work (that you pay for) unused for 22 out of every 24 hours.

elihu 7y ago

I think the solution to congestion is simply to have more medium-sized towns and cities that are desirable places to live and work. Congestion and high housing costs are symptoms of centralization. (Fixing this is easier said than done, though.)

lotsofpulp 7y ago
What if the property of being a big city itself is what makes it a desirable place to live and work?
- elihu 7y ago
  I think that's true. At least, big cities are desirable because of the network effects that come from bigness. Reproducing those same network effects in a small city would be difficult.