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I've had a similar thought regarding the impact of affordable autonomous vehicles, for two reasons. 1) Commuters who can read / game / whittle while they commut

I've had a similar thought regarding the impact of affordable autonomous vehicles, for two reasons. 1) Commuters who can read / game / whittle while they commute will be willing to commute farther, and 2) if widespread adoption of autonomous cars can mitigate the effects of traffic (i.e. enable us to actually drive the speed limit during rush hour, or at least closer to it), we'll be able to commute farther in the same amount of time. Those effects combined would unlock an absolute ton of land around urban areas.

asdff 6y ago
I have my doubts that autonomous cars will do much for traffic. Traffic doesn't necessarily happen because there are too many cars on the freeway, but too many cars on the much more limited capacity streets which back up onto the freeways. Everyone taking a self driving car into work isn't going to change the fact that traffic is bad because everyone insists on traveling 20'x5' apart from one another through a dense urban environment, which is the spacing a car gives you in bumper to bumper traffic. Now autonomous articulated bus that can hold 60 people sitting down in the footprint of 3-4 cars, that's another story.
- bgirard 6y ago
  > more limited capacity streets which back up onto the freeways These are often because of a bottleneck such as a traffic right (particularly left turn signal) or stop sign. If autonomous vehicles can be tweaked to increase throughput (better reaction times, shorter follow distance, less accidents, higher speed through chokepoints like tolls, not distracted or not accelerating slowly on light changes) you might see significant traffic reductions as a result. Little's law is applicable here. The problems with bus or commuter lines is it's hard to get people to share a route efficiently. I've had it work in the past but only where I picked my housing according to an effective commuter line for my school or work. But that's hard to arrange at scale. Where effective commuters line don't scale instead if you combine the above wins with an uber pool like service where 3-4 people are efficiently routed together. You could be looking at 2-3x fewer cars on roads that have better throughput and fewer bottlenecks.
- grecy 6y ago
  > Traffic doesn't necessarily happen because there are too many cars on the freeway, but too many cars on the much more limited capacity streets which back up onto the freeways That is true in the USA, which has absurdly short on and off ramps, but in my experience, many other countries around the world don't have this problem. Canada, Australia and the UK all have much, MUCH longer on and off ramps, and traffic doesn't back up onto freeways. Freeways still clog up, however.
  - asdff 6y ago
    Major cities in all those countries are just as congested on the streets as American cities. Toronto in particular has some of the worst traffic on the continent.

asdff 6y ago

I have my doubts that autonomous cars will do much for traffic. Traffic doesn't necessarily happen because there are too many cars on the freeway, but too many cars on the much more limited capacity streets which back up onto the freeways. Everyone taking a self driving car into work isn't going to change the fact that traffic is bad because everyone insists on traveling 20'x5' apart from one another through a dense urban environment, which is the spacing a car gives you in bumper to bumper traffic. Now autonomous articulated bus that can hold 60 people sitting down in the footprint of 3-4 cars, that's another story.

bgirard 6y ago
> more limited capacity streets which back up onto the freeways These are often because of a bottleneck such as a traffic right (particularly left turn signal) or stop sign. If autonomous vehicles can be tweaked to increase throughput (better reaction times, shorter follow distance, less accidents, higher speed through chokepoints like tolls, not distracted or not accelerating slowly on light changes) you might see significant traffic reductions as a result. Little's law is applicable here. The problems with bus or commuter lines is it's hard to get people to share a route efficiently. I've had it work in the past but only where I picked my housing according to an effective commuter line for my school or work. But that's hard to arrange at scale. Where effective commuters line don't scale instead if you combine the above wins with an uber pool like service where 3-4 people are efficiently routed together. You could be looking at 2-3x fewer cars on roads that have better throughput and fewer bottlenecks.
grecy 6y ago
> Traffic doesn't necessarily happen because there are too many cars on the freeway, but too many cars on the much more limited capacity streets which back up onto the freeways That is true in the USA, which has absurdly short on and off ramps, but in my experience, many other countries around the world don't have this problem. Canada, Australia and the UK all have much, MUCH longer on and off ramps, and traffic doesn't back up onto freeways. Freeways still clog up, however.
- asdff 6y ago
  Major cities in all those countries are just as congested on the streets as American cities. Toronto in particular has some of the worst traffic on the continent.