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> Send the car on an errand and have it come back, or even send it “home” and summon it later Now imagine what this will do to rush hour traffic - There would
by SECProto 5y ago
> Send the car on an errand and have it come back, or even send it “home” and summon it later
Now imagine what this will do to rush hour traffic - There would be twice as many vehicle trips for the same number of people. Road tolls (particularly on unoccupied cars) would be needed as part of any solution, which everyone loves even more than parking fees.
- rahimnathwani 5y ago"Road tolls (particularly on unoccupied cars)" Why should the number of occupants affect the amount of the toll?
- kspacewalk2 5y agoTo disincentivize cars driving around empty.
- rahimnathwani 5y agoA toll on all cars (not just empty cars) would already disincentivize driving around empty.
- SECProto 5y agoA larger toll on empty cars would disincentivize it more.
- rahimnathwani 5y ago"A larger toll on empty cars would disincentivize it more." A larger toll on all cars would disincentivize it just as much. My point is: why not set the toll at an optimum level, and then let each car owner decide whether it's worth the car driving at a particular time and place? If we want to charge people based on the contents of the car, why not charge lower tolls for cars with 5 occupants instead of 4. Or lower tolls for cars carrying older or fatter people (who are less able to take public transport)? It seems to me that road usage prices should be high enough to limit/eliminate congestion and that, if they were that high, there would be no need to discriminate based on what is being carried.
- SECProto 5y ago> My point is: why not set the toll at an optimum level, and then let each car owner decide whether it's worth the car driving at a particular time and place? Because to a person stuck in traffic, seeing a bunch of empty cars beside you wasting space is infuriating regardless of if they paid the government their $3 toll or whatever > If we want to charge people based on the contents of the car, why not charge lower tolls for cars with 5 occupants instead of 4. Yep, I'm fully on board with scaling the toll down as the number of occupants increases (and so are most people - HOV lanes exist for exactly that reason) > Or lower tolls for cars carrying older or fatter people (who are less able to take public transport)? Yeah, on board with this too, as are most regulatory bodies - thus the handicap only parking spaces, bus+handicap loading zones, etc. Equal isn't always fair.
- rahimnathwani 5y ago"a bunch of empty cars beside you wasting space" So if you're sending your car to pick up your grandparents, you are 'wasting space' for the first leg of the journey if you don't sit in the car during the round trip?
- SECProto 5y agoCorrect, yes, and I feel that a higher road usage toll is appropriate for that leg of the journey.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoYou mean like the autonomous delivery van? Clearly it's not that simple and we want certain vehicles to be devoid of human occupants.
- criddell 5y agoTolls of some type are probably the answer to shaping congestion. If my car is going to pick up my dry cleaning, I probably only care that I have it by tomorrow and don't care if my car picks it up at 10 am or 10 pm.
- sokoloff 5y agoA lot of rush hour traffic is asymmetric so increasing the number of cars headed on the reverse commute isn’t as bad as doubling them on the primary direction. I suspect new equilibriums would arise pretty naturally, with a mix of solutions depending on the circumstances.