Will Robot Cabs Unjam the Streets? 280
An anonymous reader writes: The Atlantic has a story with some video of a traffic simulator showing just how the roads can be jammed up by people looking for a place to park. (You can play with the simulator too.) This has been suspected for a long time by many traffic researchers and city planners, but the simulator shows just how quickly the roads jam up after just a few of the blocks fill up with parked cars. The good news is that autonomous cars don't need to park-- they just go give someone else a ride. They could change city life forever.
But not in Philadelphia (Score:5, Funny)
They may work elsewhere but they will just get beaten up in Philadelphia.
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They may work elsewhere but they will just get beaten up in Philadelphia.
I'm not sure that I understand who exactly "they" are in your statement. Do you mean:
1) The passengers will get beaten up by irate taxi drivers.
2) The autonomous taxis will get beaten up by irate taxi drivers.
3) The passengers will get beaten up by the irate autonomous taxis.
My guess is 3).
At any rate, it's not a real trip to Philly, unless someone gets beaten up.
. . . and then a cheese steak and a soft pretzel afterwards . . .
Re:But not in Philadelphia (Score:4, Informative)
In case you missed it this was a hitchbot reference.
4) The untended vehicles that show up get vandalized, stripped, and left a hulk of it's former glory.
The added benefit for the thieves is the cars come when summoned.
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I'm not sure that I understand who exactly "they" are in your statement.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/d... [yahoo.com]
Frickin Laser Beams (Score:5, Funny)
If the robot cabs are given laser beams and missile launchers they will. Boy will they ever.
"HitchBot 2 - HitchBot's Back, And He's Pissed!!!!!" (not suitable for all audiences, extreme violence and some robot nudity)
No alaska will get the traffic jam (Score:4, Funny)
when thousands of unconscious drunk people, faces covered in felt marker writing wake up and stumble out of their cabs and collectively ask where the hell am I. And the cab says "Anchorage Alaska, that'll be $1500.00 for the ride."
At least there will be enough cabs to take them home right there.
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It'll never happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Quite simply, it's not going to happen. While some people are comfortable sharing their stuff, the vast majority are rather possessive. They don't want to sit in someone else's filth. They don't want their car to drive off, pick up someone who has sex in it or their kid vomits or a pet shits, etc. Efficiency is all well and good but reality is people are disgusting and we generally want to keep to ourselves because of it.
Some will. Some won't. (Score:4, Insightful)
But think about other changes as well.
Autonomous cars can be parked a lot closer than any cars that need to open doors to let people out. So think about a few parking garages advertising "robot rates" and cutting the parking stalls down to car-size+3-inches-on-three-sides. The cars drop off their human passengers and then pack themselves into the robot garages.
Alternatively, if you're worried about someone soiling your pristine car, then charge enough to have it professionally cleaned before you want it back. And insist that the customers pay electronically so that you know EXACTLY who the offender was.
Re:Some will. Some won't. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Some will. Some won't. (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if excavation and construction was cheap (it isn't) - the cost of moving all the infrastructure located beneath the streets would make this scheme cost prohibitive. And the real estate thus freed up would be pretty much useless because you wouldn't be able to build anything significant on top of it.
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Those of us in the Boston do... It wasn't called the Big Dig for nothin'... It ended up costing about $24 billion and that was just for a few tunnels and a couple of bridges. Just imagine what it would cost to move all of the parking and streets underground.
It would be kind cool if it could be done because all of the above ground streets could be torn up and turned into walkable green spaces. But it just isn't feasible today. One day, when we have totally automated construction robots, maybe. But not
Betteridges law of headlines. (Score:2)
But think about other changes as well.
Autonomous cars can be parked a lot closer than any cars that need to open doors to let people out. So think about a few parking garages advertising "robot rates" and cutting the parking stalls down to car-size+3-inches-on-three-sides. The cars drop off their human passengers and then pack themselves into the robot garages.
Again, I doubt it's going to happen as people dont want to have to wait in a line for 10 minutes at a designated pickup zone for their car to come when they can walk 2 minutes to go straight to their car.
Alternatively, if you're worried about someone soiling your pristine car, then charge enough to have it professionally cleaned before you want it back. And insist that the customers pay electronically so that you know EXACTLY who the offender was.
In the model they're talking about, you wont own the car. This another reason why their utopian vision will never come true. Personal car ownership is considered a right and necessity in many places.
Autonomous cars will never be the traffic messiah people think they are. They wont be doing 200 MPH
Re:It'll never happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah I'm not super keen on renting out my Toyota Corolla or VW whatever car, but I would be willing to buy a car designed and maintained by uber, but I could take on road trips/extended whatever simply by turning "off" the taxi mode an hour or two ahead of when I need to use it, like going camping for the weekend or whatever.
To avoid getting crappy uber users, just set your car to only accept fares from users with at least 100 rides and an average of 4.8 stars or higher (out of 5 = 96%). Yeah on that rare occasion you will get a drunken 5 star rider who barfs in your car, but just send the car over to the Uber service center to get it cleaned up at a minimal cost. Small, almost inconsequential price to pay for basically a free car, maybe even make a profit renting your car out while you sleep/work.
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Yeah I'm not super keen on renting out my Toyota Corolla or VW whatever car, but I would be willing to buy a car designed and maintained by uber, but I could take on road trips/extended whatever simply by turning "off" the taxi mode an hour or two ahead of when I need to use it, like going camping for the weekend or whatever.
Hi, it sounds like you dont understand Uber's business model. Would you like some help.
Well stiff, you're getting some.
Uber's business model consists of taking the profits whilst shifting as many costs as possible onto the vehicle owner as possible. So if you buy a car for Uber, you'll be paying the maintenance costs, some other manufacturer (Toyota, Renault, Tata, whoever) will pay the development costs. Ubers entire business model relies on them being the middleman for minimal cost to them.
But yo
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I ride UIer about three times a week. I live just far enough from the office, and I have to pay for parking downtown that it's right at the tipping point where riding my bike or taking an uber boils down to the weather.
That said, over half the drivers I talk to have been driving for over six months, and it's their primary source of income. None of them seem particularly malnourished. Right now it's about $4 for a ride in my city, I would imagine if you cut the driver out of the equation the cost wil
Re:It'll never happen (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't want to sit in someone else's filth. They don't want their car to drive off, pick up someone who has sex in it or their kid vomits or a pet shits, etc.
Yet millions of people still take public transportation every day.
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They don't want to sit in someone else's filth. They don't want their car to drive off, pick up someone who has sex in it or their kid vomits or a pet shits, etc.
Yet millions of people still take public transportation every day.
Most do it because they can't afford to own a car. That said, it's not a debate about public transportation. The efficiencies they're talking about only work if the majority or entire system goes automated. Once you reach that then you run into the public vs private debate of individual cars vs mass transit.
Re:It'll never happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people who use mass transit use it because it is the most efficient way to get from A to B, not because they can't afford their own vehicle, nor because it's the cheapest option.
Case in point: I stayed in Atlanta for a 4 day weekend at a convention downtown. I drove to my hotel, then used the hotel's free airport shuttle to the airport to take the subway/train system MARTA to downtown Atlanta and back daily (sometimes 3 or 4 round-trips in a day). It cost me all of $10... and it was the fastest way to get from my cheap hotel to downtown as there was also a ballgame and another convention as well and the roads were bumper to bumper. I rode the train several times a day - got my money's worth and met interesting convention-goers on the train. I took a taxi back to the hotel one night when I stayed out later than the trains ran.
IF I had driven my car downtown to a lot, it would have taken two to three times as long - not to mention finding parking in busy downtown even with parking garages (I know - had a buddy that did that the next year we went), plus the cost of gas and parking for the day (for each day) would have been prohibitive. (We settled on staying at a guest hotel downtown the third year... no driving or trains. yay!)
People in cities with mass transit often prefer it over having a vehicle... and they hate the tourists who bring their cars and don't know how to drive or where to park.
But, back to your point -- you're incorrect. The efficiencies don't take hold when the vast majority of a system is automated -- they take place when only a small fraction is in place. There is a tipping point. If one single car stops to turn left into a parking garage, it can back up an entire left lane of traffic for a mile or more in a decent sized city. That's just one car. For each car that pauses to let someone out rather than turning and seeking parking, you get vast returns in traffic efficiency.
If you must make the public vs private argument, then I'd say you're just arguing quality -- if people care enough, they'll get 2 tiered taxis. One for Uber and another for Super-Uber for those that want to ensure their car is squeaky clean. Most mass transit seats are plastic and easily washable. Cars could easily be outfitted with uncomfortable, but sanitary plastic seating and a bottle of alcohol spray for the germaphobes.
Another aspect is that people junk up their cars with their own crap -- but, it's often stuff they want to keep, so they wouldn't be leaving that in Ubers... they'd just leave trash if they're litter-bugs. I bet Uber could record video and charge extra for damage or littering and put a stop to that (assuming it's paid by credit card).
They key issues for ownership of vehicles are - utility, time, personalization, and storage. People like to keep their baby carriers in the vehicle... sometimes their drinks or other groceries, napkins, kleenex, lotion, sunglasses, etc. Sometimes people store presents in trunks to hide from family members.... various other things.
The personal car isn't going away, but it could become an auto-driving personal car. Still, many families may only need 1 personal family car and use an Uber automated taxi for travelling to work, school, and most other short trips.
Re:It'll never happen (Score:4, Informative)
Traffic studies/simulations have repeatedly shown that most traffic problems originate from a single car causing a chain reaction which amplifies. You would need a significant portion of the system automated to compensate for that. Either to avoid those problems in the first place or to compensate once the problem has occurred.
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Some studies have already started to show that a minor proportion of automatic cars can actually undo such chain reactions if programmed to do so.
Link? I'd be interested to read about that.
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no need to link cuz it's common knowledge and obvious, duh /s
Re:It'll never happen (Score:4, Insightful)
then why does the traffic back up the same way and the same time every day?
Depends on the scenario. Mostly though it comes down to speed differences. Highway driving, people entering (especially a lot at once) cause traffic to slow down. Everyone behind them needs to slow down as well but it creates an amplification effect that travels like an accordion causing each person behind them to slow more than they did. Traffic jams are eased by people slowing down and going the same speed. They last longer due to jackasses who try and find the fastest lane - each lane change usually results in another accordion effect due to the psychology of break lights (people see them and over break instead of leaving a larger gap & allowing their drive train to slow for small speed changes... that's why you'll see people leaving large gaps in the middle of traffic jams; they keep their speed constant and stop the accordion effect though they can only stop 2-3 of them before they have to re-gap).
In town it's the lights. While they regulate traffic, most of a green light is spent waiting for the line of cars to accelerate with each car in the line taking longer than the next to get moving due to not wanting to over-accelerate and cause a crash. In automated cars they could solve this if every car had a standard acceleration rate, however, they would still need to make adjustments for differences in traction.
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It's like Seldon's Psychohistory :
Society is composed of individuals. And you can expect that statistically there is a certain distribution of behaviour, so in general you can treat those individuals as a mass. And there is the unthinking universe (roads, etc) which the people react to.
The guys who cause traffic jams are outliers in that they drive like epic assholes, but it only takes a few to induce traffic jams because most other people drive in a way that doesn't leave enough slack to absorb the sudden
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Like the jackass cop who, during rush hour, pulls some other jackass over for breaking the HOV rule. The cop now creates an artificial traffic jam, because everyone slows down for the flashing lights. Sure the guy/gal may have deserved a ticket, but now thousands of other commuters have to pay for it by sitting in bumper to bumper traffic...really makes me want to yell at Barney Fife. /rant
Re:It'll never happen (Score:4, Informative)
here's a counter counter example: It takes 1 hour for me to take the train into the city. It takes 2.5 hours to drive into the city. The cost of parking in the city for the day is double the price of the train ticket. But that is irrelevant, the time difference alone seals the deal for the train.
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Although in an ideal world that is at least some subset of people who are okay with public transportation in theory but don't currently find it practical. Personally i'd like to get a personal automated auto as soon as they're available, i'm not quite as enthusiastic about the robocab idea though.
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Yet millions of people still take public transportation every day.
Compared to public transportation:
+ Leaves from where you are
+ Going to where you want
+ When you want
+ In solitude
Compared to private car:
- No personalization
- Potential left-overs
I have a decent public transport offer where I live, but driving is 15 mins and 2x bus is 35 mins, 20 mins saved twice a day that's 40 mins. Times 225 working days that's 150 hours a year. I'm thinking that even though I need it daily it can do at least three rounds in the morning (7AM, 8AM, 9AM) and in the afternoon (3PM, 4PM, 5P
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"Compared to public transportation:
+ Leaves from where you are
+ Going to where you want
+ When you want
+ In solitude"
You know taxi cabs are also public transportation, right?
And here comes the elephant in the room for this article: all that it says can also be applied to taxi cabs, which already exist and still the expected results aren't happening.
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They don't want to sit in someone else's filth. They don't want their car to drive off, pick up someone who has sex in it or their kid vomits or a pet shits, etc.
Yet millions of people still take public transportation every day.
when I take the train, yes it's a public space but unlike this own and lend out model I am not on the hook for a $40k car loan on it.
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Why can't people in some countries respect public transport vehicles and keep them clean? Japanese trains and buses are immaculate. British ones vary by route, but especially buses can be quite filthy. From what I read US public transport is festering.
Maybe some populations just can't be trusted to live considerately together, and massive traffic jams and circling looking for a parking space are the punishment.
Re:It'll never happen (Score:5, Informative)
It all fell apart in 1988. One of the Democratic nominees for President (Gephardt if I remember), in a bid to win Michigan made a huge ruckus about how Hyundai was allowed to sell its cars for $6000 in the U.S., while an equivalent Ford cost $45,000 in Korea. He conveniently left out that the same Hyundai also cost $45,000 in Korea. He didn't win the nomination, but the damage was done. U.S. public sentiment forced the U.S. to pressure Korea to remove their car taxes. Cars in Korea suddenly became affordable to the average household, and Korea plummeted into two decades of gridlock.
This. (Score:2)
Re:It'll never happen (Score:4, Interesting)
They don't want their car to drive off, pick up someone who has sex in it or their kid vomits or a pet shits, etc. Efficiency is all well and good but reality is people are disgusting and we generally want to keep to ourselves because of it.
I would have thought this would be a huge problem, but after using car2go for about a year, there is only one time where I've had a mess on the interior - some weird sticky stuff spilt on the passenger seat (which, luckily, I saw before I sat in it) - I suspect it was some takeout sauce spilled out from a container or something.
In many other rides though the cars have been spotless. Generally (anecdotally obviously) the system of simply saying whether the car is clean or not from the previous driver seems to work to keep out bad actors in the system. Having to have your credit card details on file probably helps too.
Overall though car2go is great; we don't own a car here so we use it all the time now.
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I looked into things like that, they didn't make economic sense. Even with limited trips I'd be spending more on auto-sharing per month than owning my own vehicle. Granted my vehicle is fairly economical costing only $267/month over 14 years (all expenses included). Based on car2go rates, that would have been around $488/month
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The system should be able to identify riders for billing purposes and could easily blacklist or apply
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That sounds all well and great but think about the reality of it. You send your car out to make money, it comes back a mess right as you're about to head to that important [insert thing]. You need to send your car off to get cleaned, wait for another car, pay someone else to use it, and be late for that thing.
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They don't want to sit in someone else's filth.
You really need to start wearing trousers.
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They don't want to sit in someone else's filth.
You really need to start wearing trousers.
Watch the mythbusters episodes on bathrooms and runny noses. ;)
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Something people don't seem to notice about each other is that, in general, we're not actually that bad to one another. Some assholes will fuck things up, but if we were as bad as you worry, we'd never be able to have cities.
You must be rich.
Re: It'll never happen (Score:2)
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Quite simply, it's not going to happen. While some people are comfortable sharing their stuff, the vast majority are rather possessive. They don't want to sit in someone else's filth. They don't want their car to drive off, pick up someone who has sex in it or their kid vomits or a pet shits, etc. Efficiency is all well and good but reality is people are disgusting and we generally want to keep to ourselves because of it.
Guess that is why Uber never took off.
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Point taken, though I would argue that the driver is self interested to keep their vehicle clean and because they are in the vehicle the passengers behave better than they would in a driverless vehicle.
It'll never happen - TOO LATE! (Score:2)
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Auto-share is a different beast than automated-share. With auto-share you have a company handling the details of insurance/transactions/fixing problems/cleaning and so on. You also have the ability to exclude people from the market entirely due to there being only a few companies in any one city. The automated-share the individual would have to handle all of that or pay someone to handle it for them. The former is a huge barrier for the limited profit and the later cuts into the limited profit and is es
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Even personal robocars can drop you off and then drive far away to park. That alone should help a great deal with congestion.
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Shared autonomous vehicles will have their place. High traffic work areas easily and anything that demands public transport (sporting games, movies, schools, etc)... and will easily threaten to replace subways and buses--yes, replace them. The urban planners will have a lot of headaches considering they are pushing these mix-use living areas integrated into public transportation, not considering it's more expensive and time consuming [construction] to put living quarters with the subway and a bus station, e
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I completely agree. They'll very much have a place in the mix. I just don't think they'll ever have the critical mass to allow for some of the efficiency gains & widespread sharing that are being espoused. They'll just be another option among the many that are available. They'll have pros and cons like anything else in this world.
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1. They will know who used it last so if it is not right just take a picture and send it to the authorities.
2. The people will either pay a huge fine or never able to use a car again.
3. The car would probably do this as a precaution. It would take a picture of the inside and outside before and after each trip.
4, If the car is attacked by an outside force of people than the occupant would call and report it to the police.
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Automated swappable seats/whole-lower-interior liners?
Just watch "Pimp My Ride" look at the before and decide if you want people like that in your vehicle or even to drive in a public vehicle which they've occupied.
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Automated swappable seats/whole-lower-interior liners?
Just watch "Pimp My Ride" look at the before and decide if you want people like that in your vehicle or even to drive in a public vehicle which they've occupied.
This is such a solvable problem. First off all, contrary to the popular opinion of "all other humans are total assholes," most humans are mostly decent most of the time. Otherwise society would collapse. Second, all the cabs would have cameras and some mechanism for customers to report problems for that small percentage of the time that the cab is occupied by someone behaved badly/sloppily or something broke, etc. Third, part of the contract for using the cab is that if you damage it, you pay a shit ton
autonomous cars != end of personal car ownership (Score:3, Informative)
>> autonomous cars don't need to park-- they just go give someone else a ride
I'm hoping "autonomous cars != end of personal car ownership." I still like to have my own passenger compartment that no one else has eaten in, thrown up in, etc. that I can maintain to my own standard of hygiene.
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I expect that subscribed-to sedan services will increase in popularity as a step above taxis. Paying more than a conventional taxi and giving the subscriber the ability to report/reject cars that are in poor condition will allows the service to charge and ban offenders that mess up cars. On top of that, there are services for school buses where an on-vehicle camera system records the trip to a local disk only and overwrites the recordings after so many days unless a rep
Err, no, that isn't how it works (Score:2, Interesting)
"The good news is that autonomous cars don't need to park-- they just go give someone else a ride. They could change city life forever."
This will not change with autonomous cars. If people didn't want to own cars, the above situation could exist _now_ -- they are or were called taxis/taxi cabs/cabs/hansom cabs/licensed hackney carriages.
The reality is that people -- especially Americans, I suspect -- want to own cars. Only banning private vehicles from the streets or levying huge congestion charges on them
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"The good news is that autonomous cars don't need to park-- they just go give someone else a ride. They could change city life forever."
This will not change with autonomous cars. If people didn't want to own cars, the above situation could exist _now_ -- they are or were called taxis/taxi cabs/cabs/hansom cabs/licensed hackney carriages.
Yes and no. In principle people could do that and certain very high density areas, they already do. However, outside these areas, relying on taxis is too expensive and inconvenient. Further, the cost of car ownership is lower since parking one is neither difficult nor expensive.
Autonomous vehicles will greatly reduce the cost of taxis. The cost reduction means there will be more of them so they will be more convenient too. I expect many more people will choose to go car-less in that environment.
I don'
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Autonomous cars would contact all nearby car parks for free space, make an instant reservation on any free space, and go there. Car owner would have to call his car say 10 mins before he wants to leave (or wait for it to arrive) so the car can leave the car park and head out to pick up its owner. This would to me be just a logical extension to fully autonomous cars.
Those car parks would of course have to reserve some space for autonomous cars only or so, or maybe operate a mixed system, while there are stil
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I live in England, in a town where I really should have a car. For various personal reasons I do not drive; I kind of wish I did but it might not happen.
I also visit London, where it is now possible to cross roads again and generally get around because a congestion charge -- which is an EXISTING FACT that was grounded in really quite right wing economics but implemented by a left-wing mayor and perpetuated by a right wing mayor -- is in place. Average traffic speeds are in fact increasing -- they are almost
Uber - Cabby Riots - Autonomous (Score:4, Insightful)
If cab drivers are going to riot in the street and inflict personal harm and property damage, who the hell thinks an autonomous car has a snowballs chance in hell ?
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I'm pretty sure autonomous cars will have exterior video cameras which will show the perpetrators who damage the cars. Nothing like providing video evidence of misdoing, is there, as a growing number of cops are discovering?
Cabbies can't win (Score:5, Insightful)
If cab drivers are going to riot in the street and inflict personal harm and property damage, who the hell thinks an autonomous car has a snowballs chance in hell ?
There are not enough cab drivers to cause a revolution on their own, and the people aren't with them. The state has far more power and will apply it to suppress personal harm and property damage, and the public will be with the state. Thus they can slow change by various methods--most notably bribery of elected officials and regulatory capture--but they cannot stop it entirely.
Money is the only thing that would let them stop it entirely given those circumstances. (As we see with the health insurance industry which is able to largely prevent meaningful change. Obamacare came 16 years after Bill Clinton tried something bigger, after all.) And the industry doesn't have enough money to do that.
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First they came for the bank teller, I wasn't a bank teller so I said nothing.
Then they came for the cab drivers, I wasn't a cab driver so I said nothing.
Then they came for the long haul truck driver, I wasn't a truck driver so I said nothing.
Then they came for my neighbors doctor job, I wasn't a doctor so I said nothing.
Then they came for my son's pizza deliver job, it wasn't my job so I said nothing.
Then t
Re:Cabbies can't win (Score:5, Insightful)
Then they came for my job, and no one was left to defend me.
Alas you are thinking far too simply my friend. We are approaching a point where automation will potentially render a sizable portion of the population unemployable because a machine can do their job just as well, if not better and for a lesser cost in a world where Humans Need Not Apply [youtube.com]
So, instead, I became an artist, and lived off my Universal Basic Income, which was granted to me by the abundance created by automation of all the drudge jobs.
Well, except for Bill, in Passaic New Jersey, who has to press the red "there are still humans on the planet, please keep the light on" button every morning so that the robot factories don't shut down. Bill also wants to be an artist, but, no, he has to press the red button once a day. He's very unhappy that he's the only human left with an actual job, but ... frankly, Bill has always been a whiner, ever since we took away his red Swingline Stapler.
Unless you happy to be one of those roboenablers who are seeking to bring about the robotic apocalypse... in which case I say: "Well played sir!"
I'll *happily* build the S.O.B.'s, at least until they get to the point where they can build themselves... I'll even buy Bill a new stapler.
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If cab drivers are going to riot in the street and inflict personal harm and property damage, who the hell thinks an autonomous car has a snowballs chance in hell ?
Especially when all the Uber, Lyft, etc drivers realize that THEIR meal ticket won't get punched as much once the cheaper alternative shows up to ruin their little business... Sounds like fair play to me...
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The Robot cars will fight back. It will get ugly.
It's a non-issue. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Do you mean build so much parking that there's never a shortage when the price is zero? That's actually a very bad idea, because the economically optimal number of parking spaces is the number where MR=MC [wikipedia.org]. This means wherever the cost of providing a parking space is not zero, the lost revenue from not providing it should also be nonzero. In other words
Talk about reinventing the wheel... (Score:2)
Do you know what else doesn't need to park? A normal taxi. A bus or a subway car. The extent that suburban Americans will go to avoid taking public transit is nothing short of amazing. Yes, let's spend trillions to develop a network of driverless cars so suburbanites can enjoy city life without coming into contact with any of the city's grubby inhabitants.
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unless you are asserting that everyone else has exactly the same commute as you, it's pretty common knowledge that a single data point is not going to provide much insight into a problem with over two hundred million samples
Another Cure (Score:4, Interesting)
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Cities have that. But then there's the whole bribing ecosystem that messes everything up.
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Cities have that. But then there's the whole bribing ecosystem that messes everything up.
it's those stupid humans again, the alien overloads will make you much happier
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I'm a little curious as to in what universe you live in which each person brings 1.5 cars to the movie theater. Or four cars for a 1 bedroom apartment?
Re:Another Cure (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a little curious as to in what universe you live in which each person brings 1.5 cars to the movie theater.
They need enough room in the parking lot to hold two theater's worth of people, unless you expect the lot to empty and fill instantaneously between shows.
Another thought... (Score:4, Informative)
A lot of people are complaining that they do not like the idea of sharing vehicles.
What about thinking about it this way - suddenly proximity of your parking spot to where you are is a lot less important. Your personal autonomous vehicle drops you off at your destination and then goes to find a parking spot. Then, when your waiter brings you the check (for example), you let your vehicle know to come pick you up in ten minutes. The vehicle checks current traffic levels and leaves for a just-in-time pickup.
Before you go to bed you let your autonomous vehicle know what time you want to get to work. Your vehicle looks at the average commute time for that time of day and lets you know when it will pick you up. It leaves its parking spot with enough time to get you.
The drawback to this that you are spending money to pay for gas or electricity while your vehicle drives (empty) to a parking spot. I would say this is the price you pay for wanting your own vehicle. The alternative is a taxi-style service.
For everyone complaining that other people will make the car unusable, you might not have taken a cab recently. More often than not it seems like you are video recorded. In addition, the cab company (which I assume would be the same ones putting autonomous cabs on the street) would have a vested interest in keeping vehicles clean.
I used ZipCar for several years and reporting damage or a messy car was easy for the company to follow up on. The previous user had to have reserved the vehicle and paid for its use. The company has credit card on file already, it is easy enough to go after the user for damages.
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What about thinking about it this way - suddenly proximity of your parking spot to where you are is a lot less important. Your personal autonomous vehicle drops you off at your destination and then goes to find a parking spot. Then, when your waiter brings you the check (for example), you let your vehicle know to come pick you up in ten minutes. The vehicle checks current traffic levels and leaves for a just-in-time pickup.
And then it turns out that the waiter is an idiot, and takes 20 minutes to get your credit card back to you, while your car is idling by the front door, with a ticket on the windshield.
Not that I necessarily disagree with the basic idea, but the reality is that you'll tell your car to come pick you up as you walk to the door, and stand out front and wait until it gets there. There are convenience trade-offs no matter what you do.
Changing cities (Score:2, Insightful)
They could change city life forever.
Yeah, that's what was said at the time the Segway was introduced. That was 14 years ago. Nothings changed because of Segways, AFAICT.
Simpler solution... (Score:3)
Require more affordable parking in downtown areas.
Seriously, I live in Austin and work downtown. Most days I bike to work. The days I do drive, I spend 20 minutes circling looking for a spot that won't cost me $15. Street parking is $1/hr. Lots are typically $10-12. Garages (the most convenient) are always $15-20. They're also never full.
Cities should require all buildings have enough parking and set the rates to "reasonable" rather than "extortionate".
-Chris
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Require more affordable parking in downtown areas.
building out parking lots for peak demand is bad business, bad real estate usage, bad tax planning, just bad all around
your situation is actually ideal, you should be punished for driving into downtown
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Bad choice.
Why should cities subsidize parking?
Parking is an inefficient subsidized usage of valuable real estate.
It might make some sense in suburbs, but it tends to be a subsidized inefficient use of land in urban centers.
Try using transit or biking.
Another goddamn "autonomous car" press release (Score:2, Interesting)
These "autonomous car" flacks are really relentless. These stories always show up from an "anonymous reader" always in US prime time, always during the week (never on weekends) and always telling us how "autonomous cars" are going herald in the New Utopia.
There's not even an attempt to include any news in the story, just pure PR.
Even half-drunk and not paying attention I can see the pattern. Look for yourselves.
Never park? (Score:5, Interesting)
"The good news is that autonomous cars don't need to park-- they just go give someone else a ride."
They will only give another person a ride during peak hours, say morning rush hours and evening hours. Mid-day traffic will be lighter, and middle of the night traffic will be downright dead. At those time these Johny Cabs still have to go somewhere. The Schisters trying make a buck will want them programmed to waste the least gas possible. So unlike human cabs that often troll around looking for a fare, these Johny Cabs are likely to park immediately at the closest free spot and wait for someone to call for a ride with their smart phone.
Without enough regulation, these cabs may make parking matters worse, as they won't necessarily go back to home base every night if a few pennies can be saved on gas by parking near where they will be needed in the morning.
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That's easy to fix, charge demand-based overnight parking fees, adjust the fees to distribute the cars as needed.
Will any of these use "Johnny Cab?" (Score:2)
I'm sure I've seen this before (Score:2)
Now the thing is personal automated vehicles, even one per two people would still be a lot of wasted space, if the vehicles were a tiny 3m long the population density over 100m would be only 66 people assuming bumper to bumper. How about if it carried 30 -50 people in a vehicle 15m long, the population density over 100m would be between 200 - 330 people also assuming bumper to bumper. It would cause less congestion.
Of course that would mean that the vehicles would not go exactly to everyone's destination,
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How about if it carried 30 -50 people in a vehicle 15m long, the population density over 100m would be between 200 - 330 people also assuming bumper to bumper. It would cause less congestion.
Yeah here on planet earth we call these things "the commuter rail", hundreds and hundreds of them take passengers into the train station every day, avoiding traffic and alleviating congestion.
I can't believe its taken this long to come up with such an idea.
Then you are gonna have a really hard time with the reality that these devices are already moving at well over 100 mph, in New Jersey, of all places.
vehicle ownership fetish (Score:4, Insightful)
Decades of television brainwashing have convinced people to needlessly blow their paychecks on oversized overpowered motor vehicles. The military industrial complex continues to justify its existence by generating ever larger profits. The brainwashed masses plaster their vehicles with "patriotic" symbols, with the massive irony that their fuel purchases are destabilizing world politics and giving aid and comfort to those who wish us harm. The irony is lost, because the urge to own the biggest and most wasteful vehicle on the block is strong, the brainwashing is effective.
Rush hour. (Score:3)
The good news is that autonomous cars don't need to park-- they just go give someone else a ride. They could change city life forever.
Of all people who commute to work in New York City, 41% use the subway, 24% drive alone, 12% take the bus, 10% walk to work, 2% travel by commuter rail, 5% carpool, 1% use a taxi, 0.6% ride their bicycle to work, and 0.2% travel by ferry.
There are 13,237 taxis operating in New York City, not including over 40,000 other for-hire vehicles.
Transportation in New York City [wikipedia.org]
If you need over 50,000 vehicles on the road daily to meet existing for-hire demands, how many robo-cabs would you need to provide 25% of the city's commuter services?
The commuter car is by definition mostly idle between 9 in the morning and five in the afternoon and between six in the evening and seven in the morning.
Parked.
Solved problem (Score:3)
Seriously? I don't get the hype over self driving cars, but this is nuts. Maybe just the article rather than the study, if there is one. We have practically or completely driverless transport. It's called public transport, and it costs a hell of a lot less than it would to deploy and accommodate useless driverless cars. It's a solved problem, many times over. Rail, underground rail, trams, light rail, busways (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Bahn_Busway), driverless trains (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_subway_systems) etc. The answer to fixing a problem involving hundreds of cars driving to the same place is not to take the driver out of the picture, it is to take the bloody cars out of the picture.
Decent home shipping to save you from carrying your shopping home. That's the main reason people have for driving to malls. Get rid of it. It's a terrible reason, and lugging shopping home is no fun, even with a car.
Most of the world is so far behind in what's possible with public transport, that's where research should focus on. Driverless cars matter about as much as rich tycoons taking joyrides into space.
Not by a long shot! (Score:3)
Public transportation is useful, sure .... but you're WAY exaggerating its abilities.
For starters, you're at the mercy of the system. You've got to schedule everything around the times it stops where you need to be picked up, and it's likely it has no way to drop you off at your destination at the optimal time for your own needs. Then, you lose a measure of control over your environment while you're riding. Want to play your favorite song at full volume while you're out and about? Hope you brought a pair of
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By which time the cops will have been alerted by the OnStar-like tamper proofing alarm the insurers will insist on having installed, which could also quite easily photograph passengers and kill the ignition. In this scenario the only technology that doesn't already exist is the hack-my-cab device...
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There's not really much overhead for Uber, uber runs a couple of servers in the cloud, employs a small army of developers, and then operates a field office in each market. Eventually the army of developers will dwindle to a skeleton maintenance staff, and field offices are simply required for how things work, but their overhead long term is going to be very, very low.
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their overhead long term is going to be very, very low.
how convenient, when they eventually get sued out of business, there will be no assets for the victims
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The solution to that is for cities to require businesses (and apartments and condo complexes) to provide enough parking off-street. The contract between Los Angeles (where you can expect to pay $20 for valet, or drive around possibly for hours looking for a spot in front of a meter) and Orange County (where pretty much all businesses have enough parking to handle their customer traffic) is stark. Aside from the frustration factor finding parking, there is a big difference in driving patterns, at least a lot
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And a cyclist or small child dies.
Look, are robot cabs useful for: a. drunk people, b.disabled people (tremors, surgery, conditions), c. people with impaired vision or slow reactions (especially older people)?
Probably yes.
However, where we allow them and where they can operate might be different than for other cars.
And the first small child that dies it's lawsuit city, and they will never, ever, ever give up.
Humans behind the wheel kill over 30,000 people every year.
Only clint eastwood's empty chair says that robots must be perfect drivers.
The rest of us will be very happy if robots only kill 10,000 a year, and humans kill zero.
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Can you imagine the sheer carnage resulting from programming 20,000 cars to seek at the same time the same primo parking spaces in front of the Chipotle's restaurant
Facetious as this post is and given the ease at which cars are found to be hackable over remote connections, AC is highlighting what is going to be a real problem with drive by wire vehicles in the future.
So you've never seen human drivers exhibit the same behavior? Have you ever tried to park at Trader Joe's or Market Basket only to find that there are no parking spaces available at all, only people trolling around looking for parking? Who is responsible for this bug that causes more cars to arrive than there are parking spaces?