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Do you really think an autonomous car will seek out and join a traffic jam? How many times do you think an owner of an autonomous car will have to be left stra

Do you really think an autonomous car will seek out and join a traffic jam? How many times do you think an owner of an autonomous car will have to be left stranded because their car intentionally got itself stuck in a traffic jam and couldn't pick them up before they trade that vehicle in for one without such a short sighted "optimisation"?

gfodor 13y ago
The point is at any given moment, a given car is not "your car." If car A gets stuck in a traffic jam, and car B suddenly becomes the optimal vehicle from the fleet to get to you from a cost/time perspective, then suddenly car B begins travelling to you. Congestion on highways becomes a shared cost to all travelers, those who are in transit and those who are awaiting transit, and as such those travelers are able to potentially bid or pay in commensurate to how they value the time they have or will lose due to the congestion. Basically, there is no free lunch, a traffic jam is a capacity problem where demand outstrips supply, so unless you assume autonomous vehicles (once collectively networked as part of a national system) are somehow going to be less efficient at using road capacity than the same vehicles being driven by independent humans who have no global information, they will be a better solution. The fact that autonomous vehicles will be able to utilize alternative routes off-highway pre-emptively before actual congestion occurs alone is huge. Nevermind the fact that a large reason traffic jams occur is actually not a capacity problem per se, but due to a propagation of small jams into larger ones, in both time and space, due to human beings controlling the vehicle and propagating traffic waves: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_wave http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_wave In other words, traffic jams caused by accidents, road blockages, merging, or any other non-capacity related issues will likely no longer occur if the vehicles are autonomously controlled.
- EthanHeilman 13y ago
  Why not a tragedy of the commons with "rational agent" cars that are attempting to minimize parking fees. A neat idea but I think if driverless cars did this then cities would adopt traffic jam fees to realign their cost/benefit strategy in the "driving" game.

gfodor 13y ago

The point is at any given moment, a given car is not "your car." If car A gets stuck in a traffic jam, and car B suddenly becomes the optimal vehicle from the fleet to get to you from a cost/time perspective, then suddenly car B begins travelling to you. Congestion on highways becomes a shared cost to all travelers, those who are in transit and those who are awaiting transit, and as such those travelers are able to potentially bid or pay in commensurate to how they value the time they have or will lose due to the congestion. Basically, there is no free lunch, a traffic jam is a capacity problem where demand outstrips supply, so unless you assume autonomous vehicles (once collectively networked as part of a national system) are somehow going to be less efficient at using road capacity than the same vehicles being driven by independent humans who have no global information, they will be a better solution. The fact that autonomous vehicles will be able to utilize alternative routes off-highway pre-emptively before actual congestion occurs alone is huge. Nevermind the fact that a large reason traffic jams occur is actually not a capacity problem per se, but due to a propagation of small jams into larger ones, in both time and space, due to human beings controlling the vehicle and propagating traffic waves: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_wave http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_wave In other words, traffic jams caused by accidents, road blockages, merging, or any other non-capacity related issues will likely no longer occur if the vehicles are autonomously controlled.

EthanHeilman 13y ago
Why not a tragedy of the commons with "rational agent" cars that are attempting to minimize parking fees. A neat idea but I think if driverless cars did this then cities would adopt traffic jam fees to realign their cost/benefit strategy in the "driving" game.