5 ms·
Snark aside, there will probably always be conditions in which waymo is not the right answer. Are they going to do hurricane evacuation? I think removing the dr
by jvanderbot 5mo ago
Snark aside, there will probably always be conditions in which waymo is not the right answer. Are they going to do hurricane evacuation? I think removing the driver just necessitates this.
- Aboutplants 5mo agoEvacuation is a use case in my mind. Having a fleet of shuttles on command to move people in preparation of a hurricane would be a benefit. They would obviously need to put weather limitations during actual storms because no one should be driving in a hurricane.
- steveBK123 5mo agoEvacuation you want to prioritized throughput - think of how little road space 100 people in a bus take up vs say 50 cars with 2 people each. Or even 25 cars with 4 people each.
- ua709 5mo agoIf you have central control you might even be able to get away with changing the rules. i.e. most roads are now one-way leading out of the city. voilà we nearly doubled outbound throughput. Even just for commuting that would be awesome, not that it is happening anytime soon, but one can dream, especially while sitting in gridlock traffic.
- fragmede 5mo agoHaving the middle of five lanes change direction depending on the hour is fairly common. There's even a dedicated machine to move a concrete barrier to support this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IwBJPqyoB8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IwBJPqyoB8
- VoidWhisperer 5mo ago> No one should be driving in a hurricane. I agree, but there are a number of people here in Florida who will do it or die trying (emphasis on the die trying)
- VoidWhisperer 5mo agoWhile this is going to be an overly optimistic scenario: Imagine how smooth a hurricane evacuation would go if _everyone_ used a self-driving car to do the evacuation - atleast there might be less gridlock than there is during any usual hurricane evacuations. And assuming the self driving cars don't do something stupid that causes every car behind it to essentially lock up and stop moving That said, I know a scenario like that would never happen, probably for the best.
- Jabrov 5mo agoWhy would there be less gridlock if people were in a driverless car instead of a regular car?
- lukevp 5mo agoTraffic is usually caused by adding inefficiencies across a system with little slack - someone brakes too hard or too early, and if all the cars are stacked up, that one brake event can ripple through hundreds of following cars, getting worse and worse because each person brakes more. Self driving cars can perfectly sync up and move like a train. Theoretically there could be no traffic on highways if all cars are self-driving. Rarely is a highway so full that there couldn’t be more cars (eg. The entrance ramps are backed up) which implies the issues are related to the driving flow and not the capacity of the street itself.
- queenkjuul 5mo ago> Rarely is a highway so full that there couldn’t be more cars Yep, here in Chicago you might even go as many as 12 hours between such events
- paxys 5mo agoSame reason there's less gridlock when people obey traffic lights and other rules of the road and don't brake randomly. If every car on the road drove itself then there would never be traffic.
- hooloovoo_zoo 5mo agoExcept the Waymo can do 150 mph bumper to bumper with other Waymos if you let them.