6 ms·

> The congestion problem is mostly overblown. It's really not. Congestion is a huge problem already, and increasing the current road utilization by 83% will br

> The congestion problem is mostly overblown. It's really not. Congestion is a huge problem already, and increasing the current road utilization by 83% will bring entire cities to a standstill for the entirety of waking hours. > I just eyeballed but ~80% cars were single person. Yes, and in the AV future the majority of cars on the road will have zero occupants, so things will get much, much worse as far as how many people are actually being transported vs road utilization. You then go on to talk about robotaxis, but that supposes that most people will give up the idea of personal car ownership entirely instead of just buying their own AVs; this doesn't seem likely.

Aloha 7y ago
If the future is car as a service, then yes congestion does not automatically get worse, you call an automated car to pick you up, and another one to take you home, it might also mean that more ride sharing happens too
- Moru 7y ago
  But we already have buses and bicycles. Car as a service might just as well make the congestion worse since it will go empty to pick you up.
  - maccam94 7y ago
    Think Uber carpooling, minus drivers, much cheaper, and short pickup times. Maybe 6-10 person shuttles instead of sedans/SUVs in denser areas. To a car service, moving an empty vehicle is inefficient and a waste of money.
    - masonic 7y ago
      Keeping an empty electric vehicle in motion all the time is cheaper than parking it, in urban contexts.
      - jcranmer 7y ago
        Because you're not pricing the externalities of having zero-occupant vehicles roaming around streets that are already at or near maximum capacity.
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 7y ago
We're going to have to slowly shift to more usage-based pricing if we want autonomous cars to work. Start off charging tolls per mile for zero occupancy vehicles when they drive in congested areas, then expend it to single occupancy vehicles in congested areas, etc. A bit more controversial, but I personally love the idea of a congestion-free fast lane (say, 100+ mph) exclusively for autonomous vehicles, with prices that fluctuate based on supply and demand. We already have this for a couple freeways in Southern California and it's lovely to have as an option.
- neaanopri 7y ago
  Gas taxes are already effectively toll-per-mile, with a bonus incentive to get fuel efficient cars. If we start seeing enough EV adoption to dent gas tax revenues, that's a win.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    The linked article addresses how gas taxes are nowhere near good enough to solve the congestion problem, and especially not when more cars go EV.
  - wutbrodo 7y ago
    This is already the case, and has been so for a little while.
  - maremp 7y ago
    If you’re talking gas tax in the US, I’d say that’s laughable. Using eia.gov[1] as a reference, the prices are half of what we have in the EU. We’ve observed a steady increase in the prices (mostly due to taxes). But it didn’t have the effect, people just deal with the higher price and carry on. There’s even more cars than there used to be. And the average living standard in the east/SE EU is lower of that in the US. When I was in Göteborg, Sweden, I saw this system where the toll increases based on the time, and it’s highest (~30 SEK = ~3€) in the rush hour. There was no price in the off hours. Maybe if it costs more to drive in the rush hour, one might think about not doing it or finding someone else to split the cost. To rely on the “tax system” to take care of the congestion/traffic pollution problem, we’d have to bump the taxes and tolls by 10x to see any effect. EV is a step in the right direction, but only by a small amount. We need incentive to drive less, something that forces everyone to think before they drive. And by everyone I have in mind the person who is driving and also the person who is making them drive to the office to have their physical presence to do the same work they can do from anywhere. Make it more expensive for a company to have car riders and make them count commute as part of the workday. I believe remote work is a part of the solution to this and making it more expensive to get everyone to the HQ every day might make more managers reconsider if it’s necessary. [1]: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/ https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/
erik_seaberg 7y ago
The number of people who need to commute during rush hour can't increase 83%. Maybe some transit commuters will switch to cars, but maybe some car commuters will finally be able to switch to transit if these make the first and last mile feasible. And 83% was the first and only week. Maybe the number doesn't stay that high once indulging in the novelty wears off.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  You're forgetting the unoccupied trips. There will be unoccupied trips running errands even at rush hour, because why not, you're not sitting in traffic, just your car. Also you seem to be thinking more of the robotaxis model, but the article is talking about the more likely future of everyone continuing to own their own car, only now it can drive. If cars are driving back empty after a commute then rush hour will have roughly twice the traffic.
  - BubRoss 7y ago
    Wouldn't that be a trip that someone would normally be driving anyway? Also wouldn't it make sense to have a store deliver to lots of people on one circuit, this reducing traffic?
    - CydeWeys 7y ago
      No, once you don't need to drive it personally you can run a lot more errands, and thus will. See the linked article. And look at how much more random stuff people buy when a click of a mouse gets it delivered to your house vs having to go to stores looking for it.
      - BubRoss 7y ago
        If one car is going in a loop and delivering to lots of people it would be less time on the road than all the cars of the individual errands.
        7y ago
Supermancho 7y ago
> Yes, and in the AV future the majority of cars on the road will have zero occupants Where do you get that idea from? or maybe, how did you come to that conclusion? It's not evident that would be the case. Traffic mirrors demand. Demand goes both ways, unevenly. Prior to the end-of-the-work-day, you would see an increase in empty vehicles consolidating for the imminent exodus of a city, but that would hardly be the common case. > that supposes that most people will give up the idea of personal car ownership entirely instead of just buying their own AVs There are multiple ways to ensure this occurs. The same reason horse carriages aren't allowed on Freeways (legal/safety barriers), or almost nobody uses gliders or natural gas cars to commute (impractical), etc. US Society is subject to change/more malleable than you might imagine. Maybe not in our lifetime, but ubiquitous phone booths disappeared in mine, so I hold out hope.
- spc476 7y ago
  So here's a hypothetical scenario. Car drives kids to school (in my experience, school tends to start before work). Drives back empty to pick up parent to drive to work. In the afternoon, car drives (empty) to pick up kids and drive them home, then drives (empty) back to work to pick up the parent. Half the time it's empty.
  - Supermancho 7y ago
    > Drives back empty to pick up parent to drive to work. This implies there are no other people for which a rideshare would be suitable in either direction at any given time. This seems, like an unreasonable way to predict how mass AV would work. Again, demand is asymmetrical, which means there are opportunities for aggregation and overlap, when talking about mass adoption to the point that "the majority of cars on the road will have zero occupants". There's the issue with demand for AV availability (ie traffic), which can never be reduced to zero. This would incentivize better judgement than "I'll stagger the school and work times" Logically, why would AVs be 1-4 occupant vehicles? Once you have AV, you have AV vans and buses, similar to airport shuttling.
    - CydeWeys 7y ago
darawk 7y ago
> It's really not. Congestion is a huge problem already, and increasing the current road utilization by 83% will bring entire cities to a standstill for the entirety of waking hours. That's not how equilibria work though. Currently congestion is the primary bottleneck on personal consumption of transportation in major metro areas in the US. That will not change with AVs. That is to say, we will probably reach a similar congestion equilibrium as we have now, there will just be more transportation happening, which is a net good thing provided there are not also negative externalities (such as emissions) from that transportation bump.

Aloha 7y ago

If the future is car as a service, then yes congestion does not automatically get worse, you call an automated car to pick you up, and another one to take you home, it might also mean that more ride sharing happens too

Moru 7y ago
But we already have buses and bicycles. Car as a service might just as well make the congestion worse since it will go empty to pick you up.
- maccam94 7y ago
  Think Uber carpooling, minus drivers, much cheaper, and short pickup times. Maybe 6-10 person shuttles instead of sedans/SUVs in denser areas. To a car service, moving an empty vehicle is inefficient and a waste of money.
  - masonic 7y ago
    Keeping an empty electric vehicle in motion all the time is cheaper than parking it, in urban contexts.
    - jcranmer 7y ago
      Because you're not pricing the externalities of having zero-occupant vehicles roaming around streets that are already at or near maximum capacity.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 7y ago

We're going to have to slowly shift to more usage-based pricing if we want autonomous cars to work. Start off charging tolls per mile for zero occupancy vehicles when they drive in congested areas, then expend it to single occupancy vehicles in congested areas, etc. A bit more controversial, but I personally love the idea of a congestion-free fast lane (say, 100+ mph) exclusively for autonomous vehicles, with prices that fluctuate based on supply and demand. We already have this for a couple freeways in Southern California and it's lovely to have as an option.

neaanopri 7y ago
Gas taxes are already effectively toll-per-mile, with a bonus incentive to get fuel efficient cars. If we start seeing enough EV adoption to dent gas tax revenues, that's a win.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  The linked article addresses how gas taxes are nowhere near good enough to solve the congestion problem, and especially not when more cars go EV.
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  This is already the case, and has been so for a little while.
- maremp 7y ago
  If you’re talking gas tax in the US, I’d say that’s laughable. Using eia.gov[1] as a reference, the prices are half of what we have in the EU. We’ve observed a steady increase in the prices (mostly due to taxes). But it didn’t have the effect, people just deal with the higher price and carry on. There’s even more cars than there used to be. And the average living standard in the east/SE EU is lower of that in the US. When I was in Göteborg, Sweden, I saw this system where the toll increases based on the time, and it’s highest (~30 SEK = ~3€) in the rush hour. There was no price in the off hours. Maybe if it costs more to drive in the rush hour, one might think about not doing it or finding someone else to split the cost. To rely on the “tax system” to take care of the congestion/traffic pollution problem, we’d have to bump the taxes and tolls by 10x to see any effect. EV is a step in the right direction, but only by a small amount. We need incentive to drive less, something that forces everyone to think before they drive. And by everyone I have in mind the person who is driving and also the person who is making them drive to the office to have their physical presence to do the same work they can do from anywhere. Make it more expensive for a company to have car riders and make them count commute as part of the workday. I believe remote work is a part of the solution to this and making it more expensive to get everyone to the HQ every day might make more managers reconsider if it’s necessary. [1]: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/ https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/

erik_seaberg 7y ago

The number of people who need to commute during rush hour can't increase 83%. Maybe some transit commuters will switch to cars, but maybe some car commuters will finally be able to switch to transit if these make the first and last mile feasible. And 83% was the first and only week. Maybe the number doesn't stay that high once indulging in the novelty wears off.

CydeWeys 7y ago
You're forgetting the unoccupied trips. There will be unoccupied trips running errands even at rush hour, because why not, you're not sitting in traffic, just your car. Also you seem to be thinking more of the robotaxis model, but the article is talking about the more likely future of everyone continuing to own their own car, only now it can drive. If cars are driving back empty after a commute then rush hour will have roughly twice the traffic.
- BubRoss 7y ago
  Wouldn't that be a trip that someone would normally be driving anyway? Also wouldn't it make sense to have a store deliver to lots of people on one circuit, this reducing traffic?
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    No, once you don't need to drive it personally you can run a lot more errands, and thus will. See the linked article. And look at how much more random stuff people buy when a click of a mouse gets it delivered to your house vs having to go to stores looking for it.
    - BubRoss 7y ago
      If one car is going in a loop and delivering to lots of people it would be less time on the road than all the cars of the individual errands.
      - 7y ago

Supermancho 7y ago

> Yes, and in the AV future the majority of cars on the road will have zero occupants Where do you get that idea from? or maybe, how did you come to that conclusion? It's not evident that would be the case. Traffic mirrors demand. Demand goes both ways, unevenly. Prior to the end-of-the-work-day, you would see an increase in empty vehicles consolidating for the imminent exodus of a city, but that would hardly be the common case. > that supposes that most people will give up the idea of personal car ownership entirely instead of just buying their own AVs There are multiple ways to ensure this occurs. The same reason horse carriages aren't allowed on Freeways (legal/safety barriers), or almost nobody uses gliders or natural gas cars to commute (impractical), etc. US Society is subject to change/more malleable than you might imagine. Maybe not in our lifetime, but ubiquitous phone booths disappeared in mine, so I hold out hope.

spc476 7y ago
So here's a hypothetical scenario. Car drives kids to school (in my experience, school tends to start before work). Drives back empty to pick up parent to drive to work. In the afternoon, car drives (empty) to pick up kids and drive them home, then drives (empty) back to work to pick up the parent. Half the time it's empty.
- Supermancho 7y ago
  > Drives back empty to pick up parent to drive to work. This implies there are no other people for which a rideshare would be suitable in either direction at any given time. This seems, like an unreasonable way to predict how mass AV would work. Again, demand is asymmetrical, which means there are opportunities for aggregation and overlap, when talking about mass adoption to the point that "the majority of cars on the road will have zero occupants". There's the issue with demand for AV availability (ie traffic), which can never be reduced to zero. This would incentivize better judgement than "I'll stagger the school and work times" Logically, why would AVs be 1-4 occupant vehicles? Once you have AV, you have AV vans and buses, similar to airport shuttling.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago

darawk 7y ago

> It's really not. Congestion is a huge problem already, and increasing the current road utilization by 83% will bring entire cities to a standstill for the entirety of waking hours. That's not how equilibria work though. Currently congestion is the primary bottleneck on personal consumption of transportation in major metro areas in the US. That will not change with AVs. That is to say, we will probably reach a similar congestion equilibrium as we have now, there will just be more transportation happening, which is a net good thing provided there are not also negative externalities (such as emissions) from that transportation bump.