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Sure, if you have 100% self-driving vehicles with good vehicle-to-vehicle communications, you can even do intersections like this: http://vimeo.com/37751380 ht
by nkoren 13y ago
Sure, if you have 100% self-driving vehicles with good vehicle-to-vehicle communications, you can even do intersections like this:
http://vimeo.com/37751380 http://vimeo.com/37751380
However, there's one further requirement for removing traffic lights and lanes and such: no pedestrians (try to imagine crossing the street in the above simulation). If you believe that cities should be designed for human beings, then this is a real problem.
So let's say you want to remove the traffic lights and create a high-speed continuous-flow system comprised of lightweight energy-efficient micro-cars. How could you make this compatible with human habitation? By removing the roads entirely, and running the vehicles on cheap segregated infrastructure, either below or above ground.
Sound fanciful? This technology already exists, and is much more mature than self-driving cars. It's called "Personal Rapid Transit" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit), and has been prototyped successfully for decades. The first commercial system began operating in 2010, and there are now three PRT networks in public operation (The Masdar Institute in Abu Dhabi, Terminal 5 at London Heathrow Airport, and a national park in Suncheon South Korea).
When it comes to self-driving cars, freeways / motorways will be relatively easy to automate, because they are already pedestrian-free continuous-flow environments. I expect to see vehicles available which can do that by the end of this decade, or possibly early next decade. Mixed-mode surface streets will be far more difficult, however, and while they are likely to become automated in the longer term, I suspect that this will only happen at very low speeds -- possibly as low as 10 km/hr, which is the speed at which humans and vehicles can interoperate in a truly safe manner.
- mikeash 13y agoCool, they incorporated turns! I saw that no-stop intersection when they first had it with purely straight traffic and no turns, and never checked it out again. My problem with that approach is that there seems to be very little room for error. And while we might say that AI drivers wouldn't make errors, the rest of the equipment is not necessarily so reliable. Seems like such an intersection would be one seized brake line or one engine sputter away from massive fiery death.
- knowaveragejoe 13y agoWell, one would think that the other cars would be able to adapt to one or more cars behaving erratically.
- flatline 13y ago> try to imagine crossing the street in the above simulation Just start walking, the cars will steer around you! More seriously, there are already separate express and local routes for many major roads across the US, I don't think it has to be a radical departure from what is already there. Best part is, the way that self-driving cars are progressing to drive on regular roads, the infrastructure can grow more specialized for self-driving cars organically over time.
- jerf 13y agoI will be intrigued to see the psychology of how that plays out, once people are comfortable with self-driving cars. Are we going to appreciate being in an intersection in which a care is approaching our side at 40 mph? Are people going to just charge out into traffic and trust the cars to reroute, if that turns out to be possible? (It may not be for various reasons, but let's run with it.)
- yaeger 13y agoWhy would people have to run into traffic at all? I'd say the easiest way to have streets with self driving cars and without traffic lights would be to build pedestrian overpasses. Just a nice small bridge to cross the roads.
- coryfklein 13y ago> So let's say you want to remove the traffic lights and create a high-speed continuous-flow system comprised of lightweight energy-efficient micro-cars. How could you make this compatible with human habitation? By removing the roads entirely, and running the vehicles on cheap segregated infrastructure, either below or above ground. Or, bridges.