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3 points should be considered: 1) Even with robots there will be unknowns which the robots will have to deal with which will still require a margin of safety.

3 points should be considered: 1) Even with robots there will be unknowns which the robots will have to deal with which will still require a margin of safety. Likely that margin of safety will be lower with robots, but definitely will not approach 100% capacity. (things like tire blow-outs, deer, even sudden rain etc). 2) Road wear will still need to be considered in any cost benefit analysis. Presumably road wear is less of a factor than jamming cars on the road, but I don't know that for sure and someone should do the math on that. There is also a point where if you exceed a certain capacity percentage, anytime road work needs to be done it would dramatically impact traffic since there is less of buffer to absorb the lack of lanes. 3) As we increase capacity, we may run in to additional problems that we cannot imagine. Bridges for example could be an issue as the amount of weight would be increased dramatically, even more remote a possibility would be damage from additional vibrations etc. Those are just ideas that come to mind, but there are probably many other risks we are not considering. Overall, I am 100% for robotic cars, robotic passenger jets, etc. I just wanted to brainstorm a few future problems that may need to be considered as we move forward. The last thing I want to see is a 5 year setback. Then again, the engineers at google and elsewhere have probably considered all these things which just seem new to me as a casual outside observer.

maxerickson 14y ago
If automatic car implies networked car, routes that are under construction could easily be converted into toll roads (presuming there is a toll that will offset the congestion). I guess lots of people wouldn't like it, but lots of people already don't like traffic jams.
- wtvanhest 14y ago
  Can you imagine how crazy that concept could become? I wonder how elasticity of demand for toll roads would change if a computer was driving your car. If when you got in, it gave you 5 options with estimated times and prices and you could always choose it would be awesome.
ajross 14y ago
I think your broad point is correct; no system can be perfect. But most of your criticisms have straightforward rebuttals. Robots, being robots, are going to be inherently safer at the stuff you mention (tire failure, sudden obstacles, weather) simply because those things are "dangerous" precisely because they are unforseen and require the driver to take action quickly. Robots are faster. Road wear is a cost, but it scales at worst linearly with traffic. I can't imagine anyone crying because we can now build ($$$$) half as many lanes of highways but much repave ($) them twice as often. And the bridges things is just wrong. Bridges are obviuosly designed for maximal loads, which in this case would be a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam of even more weight than a packed stream of robots. And that happens routinely.
- 001sky 14y ago
  We don't want to mis-underestimate the complexity driving a car. The dynamics of obstacle avoidance, for example. Have you ever been hit by a deer?. Had a blowout (not a flat) on an SUV, say in a decreasing radius, off camber turn? Can you solve for some of these considerations? certainly. But you would need extra-ordinary technology. The dataset for camber-level 3D GPS maps, for example = large. What about a sinkhole or collapse of roadway al-la Embarcadero freeway? Or the Collapse of the Bay Bridge? What about hydro-planing after a rainstorm in CA? Lastly, ABS can be dangerous on snow, dirt and other imperfect road surfaces. How do you feather the brakes? Just some edge cases. On the cost side, the interstate system is ~complete. So, you wont be saving money by avoiding future construction, in proportion. You will just be speeding up the depreciation of the existing capital infrastructure. So, again, that's not a clear cut case there.
  - ajross 14y ago
    I'm not following those edge cases at all. Those all sound pretty fatal to humans too, or invoke driver skills ("feather the brakes", seriously?) that real-world drivers don't have. The point here isn't to be perfect, it's to be better. And that is, frankly, a very low bar. Also: I'm very amused by your assertion that the interstate highway system (probably 10% of which is under expansion at any given time in any give metro area, and the remainder of which is rapidly approaching capacity and/or experiencing routine unplanned congestion) is "done".
nuclear_eclipse 14y ago
> Bridges for example could be an issue as the amount of weight would be increased dramatically If that was a large concern, then wouldn't we see a lot of bridge failures during bumper-to-bumper traffic due to accidents and/or rush hour? I would hope that bridges are designed to handle the weight of cars being packed that closely together, seeing how often it actually happens in the real world.
russell 14y ago
2) Do the work at night, esp. paving. In CA this is routinely done, even for roads of moderate capacity.
- wtvanhest 14y ago
  You have to pay workers more at night which will increase costs in areas that currently use day workers. That is just what I can think of offhand. Likely there are no fullproof solutions to this problem, but rather OK solutions that will work in some cases and not in others. Then again, the future probably has all road work done by robots too so this will be less and less of an issue.

maxerickson 14y ago

If automatic car implies networked car, routes that are under construction could easily be converted into toll roads (presuming there is a toll that will offset the congestion). I guess lots of people wouldn't like it, but lots of people already don't like traffic jams.

wtvanhest 14y ago
Can you imagine how crazy that concept could become? I wonder how elasticity of demand for toll roads would change if a computer was driving your car. If when you got in, it gave you 5 options with estimated times and prices and you could always choose it would be awesome.

ajross 14y ago

I think your broad point is correct; no system can be perfect. But most of your criticisms have straightforward rebuttals. Robots, being robots, are going to be inherently safer at the stuff you mention (tire failure, sudden obstacles, weather) simply because those things are "dangerous" precisely because they are unforseen and require the driver to take action quickly. Robots are faster. Road wear is a cost, but it scales at worst linearly with traffic. I can't imagine anyone crying because we can now build ($$$$) half as many lanes of highways but much repave ($) them twice as often. And the bridges things is just wrong. Bridges are obviuosly designed for maximal loads, which in this case would be a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam of even more weight than a packed stream of robots. And that happens routinely.

001sky 14y ago
We don't want to mis-underestimate the complexity driving a car. The dynamics of obstacle avoidance, for example. Have you ever been hit by a deer?. Had a blowout (not a flat) on an SUV, say in a decreasing radius, off camber turn? Can you solve for some of these considerations? certainly. But you would need extra-ordinary technology. The dataset for camber-level 3D GPS maps, for example = large. What about a sinkhole or collapse of roadway al-la Embarcadero freeway? Or the Collapse of the Bay Bridge? What about hydro-planing after a rainstorm in CA? Lastly, ABS can be dangerous on snow, dirt and other imperfect road surfaces. How do you feather the brakes? Just some edge cases. On the cost side, the interstate system is ~complete. So, you wont be saving money by avoiding future construction, in proportion. You will just be speeding up the depreciation of the existing capital infrastructure. So, again, that's not a clear cut case there.
- ajross 14y ago
  I'm not following those edge cases at all. Those all sound pretty fatal to humans too, or invoke driver skills ("feather the brakes", seriously?) that real-world drivers don't have. The point here isn't to be perfect, it's to be better. And that is, frankly, a very low bar. Also: I'm very amused by your assertion that the interstate highway system (probably 10% of which is under expansion at any given time in any give metro area, and the remainder of which is rapidly approaching capacity and/or experiencing routine unplanned congestion) is "done".

nuclear_eclipse 14y ago

> Bridges for example could be an issue as the amount of weight would be increased dramatically If that was a large concern, then wouldn't we see a lot of bridge failures during bumper-to-bumper traffic due to accidents and/or rush hour? I would hope that bridges are designed to handle the weight of cars being packed that closely together, seeing how often it actually happens in the real world.

russell 14y ago

2) Do the work at night, esp. paving. In CA this is routinely done, even for roads of moderate capacity.

wtvanhest 14y ago
You have to pay workers more at night which will increase costs in areas that currently use day workers. That is just what I can think of offhand. Likely there are no fullproof solutions to this problem, but rather OK solutions that will work in some cases and not in others. Then again, the future probably has all road work done by robots too so this will be less and less of an issue.