'Uber Was Supposed to Help Traffic. It Didn't. Robotaxis Will Be Even Worse.' (sfchronicle.com) 264
Saturday the San Francisco Chronicle published a joint opinion piece from MIT professor Carlo Ratti (who directs an MIT digital lab exploring the collection of digital data about urban life) and John Rossant (founder of the collaborative data-sharing platform CoMotion).
Together they penned a warning about a future filled with robotaxis. "Their convenience could seduce us into vastly overusing our cars. The result? An artificial-intelligence-powered nightmare of traffic, technically perfect but awful for our cities." Why do we believe this? Because it has already come to pass with ride-sharing. In the 2010s, the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where one of us serves as the director, was at the forefront of using Big Data to study how ride-hailing and ride-sharing could make our streets cleaner and more efficient. The findings appeared to be astonishing: With minimal delays to passengers, we could match riders and reduce the size of New York City taxi fleets by 40%. More people could get around in fewer cars for less money. We could reduce car ownership, and free up curbs and parking lots for new uses. This utopian vision was not only compelling but within reach.
After publishing our results, we started the first collaboration between MIT and Uber to research a then-new product: Uber Pool (now rebranded UberX Share), a service that allows riders to share cars when heading to similar destinations for a lower cost. Alas, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Our research was technically right, but we had not taken into account changes in human behavior. Cars are more convenient and comfortable than walking, buses and subways — and that is why they are so popular. Make them even cheaper through ride-sharing and people are coaxed away from those other forms of transit. This dynamic became clear in the data a few years later: On average, ride-hailing trips generated far more traffic and 69% more carbon dioxide than the trips they displaced. We were proud of our contribution to ride-sharing but dismayed to see the results of a 2018 study that found that Uber Pool was so cheap it increased overall city travel: For every mile of personal driving it removed, it added 2.6 miles of people who otherwise would have taken another mode of transportation.
As robotaxis are on the cusp of proliferating across the world, we are about to repeat the same mistake, but at a far greater scale... [W]e cannot let a shiny new piece of technology drive us into an epic traffic jam of our own making. The best way to make urban mobility accessible, efficient and green is not about new technologies — neither self-driving cars nor electric ones — but old ones. Buses, subways, bikes and our own two feet are cleaner, cheaper and more efficient than anything Silicon Valley has dreamt up... Autonomous technology could, for example, allow cities to offer more buses, shuttles and other forms of public transit around the clock. That's because the availability of on-demand AVs could assure "last-mile" connections between homes and transit stops. It could also be a godsend for older people and those with disabilities. However, any scale-up of AVs should be counterbalanced with investments in mass transit and improvements in walkability.
Above all, we must put in place smart regulatory and tax regimes that allow all sustainable mobility modes — including autonomous services — to scale safely and intelligently. They should include, for example, congestion fees to discourage overuse of individual vehicles.
Together they penned a warning about a future filled with robotaxis. "Their convenience could seduce us into vastly overusing our cars. The result? An artificial-intelligence-powered nightmare of traffic, technically perfect but awful for our cities." Why do we believe this? Because it has already come to pass with ride-sharing. In the 2010s, the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where one of us serves as the director, was at the forefront of using Big Data to study how ride-hailing and ride-sharing could make our streets cleaner and more efficient. The findings appeared to be astonishing: With minimal delays to passengers, we could match riders and reduce the size of New York City taxi fleets by 40%. More people could get around in fewer cars for less money. We could reduce car ownership, and free up curbs and parking lots for new uses. This utopian vision was not only compelling but within reach.
After publishing our results, we started the first collaboration between MIT and Uber to research a then-new product: Uber Pool (now rebranded UberX Share), a service that allows riders to share cars when heading to similar destinations for a lower cost. Alas, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Our research was technically right, but we had not taken into account changes in human behavior. Cars are more convenient and comfortable than walking, buses and subways — and that is why they are so popular. Make them even cheaper through ride-sharing and people are coaxed away from those other forms of transit. This dynamic became clear in the data a few years later: On average, ride-hailing trips generated far more traffic and 69% more carbon dioxide than the trips they displaced. We were proud of our contribution to ride-sharing but dismayed to see the results of a 2018 study that found that Uber Pool was so cheap it increased overall city travel: For every mile of personal driving it removed, it added 2.6 miles of people who otherwise would have taken another mode of transportation.
As robotaxis are on the cusp of proliferating across the world, we are about to repeat the same mistake, but at a far greater scale... [W]e cannot let a shiny new piece of technology drive us into an epic traffic jam of our own making. The best way to make urban mobility accessible, efficient and green is not about new technologies — neither self-driving cars nor electric ones — but old ones. Buses, subways, bikes and our own two feet are cleaner, cheaper and more efficient than anything Silicon Valley has dreamt up... Autonomous technology could, for example, allow cities to offer more buses, shuttles and other forms of public transit around the clock. That's because the availability of on-demand AVs could assure "last-mile" connections between homes and transit stops. It could also be a godsend for older people and those with disabilities. However, any scale-up of AVs should be counterbalanced with investments in mass transit and improvements in walkability.
Above all, we must put in place smart regulatory and tax regimes that allow all sustainable mobility modes — including autonomous services — to scale safely and intelligently. They should include, for example, congestion fees to discourage overuse of individual vehicles.
Surprised Pikachu face (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean putting more vehicles on the road didn't help the traffic situation? Who could have guessed?
Re:Surprised Pikachu face (Score:5, Insightful)
Uber Was Supposed to Help Traffic. It Didn't.
How would that even work? People made the same number of trips by car. It just wasn't their car.
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Uber Was Supposed to Help Traffic. It Didn't.
How would that even work? People made the same number of trips by car. It just wasn't their car.
No, they aren't. Uber is a taxi service. Bob wasn't already going to 100 Main Street. Someone contacted him to pick them up and take them there. This means more vehicles coming in from outside the area to deliver people to their requested destination.
Re:Surprised Pikachu face (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the crux of the problem.
The idea is that if everyone didn't own their own car, the streets would be less crowded.
But in reality, the number of trips by car remained the same, except now the car wasn't starting where the person making that trip was (e.g. in a parking spot), so a car needs to be brought to the desired starting point. You have actually increased the number of trips by car, even if you have potentially reduced the total number of vehicles... any real reduction in number of owned vehicles just means more parking, not less traffic.
The only ways to reduce traffic (short of an outright ban on personal vehicles) are either to make walking a more viable and attractive option, and/or to provide better mass transit that reduces the number of vehicles by transporting more people at once.
=Smidge=
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The actual manufacturing of the vehicles themselves is still a significant source of pollution.
Re: Surprised Pikachu face (Score:2)
Re:Surprised Pikachu face (Score:4, Informative)
There are any number of studies (here is but one example [sciencedirect.com], here's another [iea.org]) showing that the emissions associated with building a vehicle are quite small compared to those of actually using the vehicle. EVs have higher up-front pollution associated with them, but drastically lower operating pollution.
If you are concerned about pollution from vehicles, the place to look is how far and often they are driven, and less about their manufacture.
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The only ways to reduce traffic (short of an outright ban on personal vehicles) are either to make walking a more viable and attractive option, and/or to provide better mass transit that reduces the number of vehicles by transporting more people at once.
Pretty much. However, I'd argue that robotaxis could help with this. Or even just self driving cars.
But at least initially, they might even make the problem worse because of said multiplication effect(taxis make 1 trip into 2 - first the taxi has to reach you, then it has to go to your destination, then possibly even reset to a holding area again, making it 3 trips). This is all about shifting the margins, by the way. Some people already live without cars, some aren't going to get rid of their car ever.
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As a counter-example, I was recently made [timharford.com] aware [google.com] of how in 2008 Chicago sold the rights to its parking to a consortium headed by Morgan Stanley. In exchange for $1 billion or so, Chicago would let the consortium privatize the metered parking across the city - for the next 75 years!
What happened? Parking fees jumped substantially, so much so that the consortium will probably break even on the deal in this dec
Re:Surprised Pikachu face (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem, in my mind, all comes down to density. You want walkable neighborhoods where people have a realistic chance of getting to the services they want and need by walking there on a significant percentage basis? You need density.
To an extent but not as much as most people think. Oulu in Finland has about the same size and density as London, Ontario, the latter of which is a pretty typical sprawly North American town. Oulu also gets cold and with heavy snowfall every year, and yet people bike throughout the year. Half of the kids go to school by
The answer "how" is related similar to how you get people to take public transport: make it not suck. If every road was an uncleared dirt track next to a ravine, and frequently crossed by unlabelled freight train tracks almost no one would go by car. People bike because the experience is good: there are good quality bike routes, which are treated with the same degree of respect as cars: safe routes are provided, bike paths are cleared or compacted (snow), and etc. So, cycling doesn't suck.
You can make public transport not suck too: if public transport is stuck in the same traffic as cars, then going by bus or tram if you have one is basically like a bad version of driving.
And yep, on the small scale it needs to be reasonable. The laws that require massive parking lots for every strip mall store not only encourage driving, they also discourage anything else because it's pretty much worth (and in some cases necessary) to drive between shops in the same strip mall rather than walk.
In America as it is today the average journey is less than 3 miles. That's maybe 15 minutes on a bike, for a casual cyclist on an upright city bike or 10 on an ebike (or less for a keen cyclist). Even for relatively slow stop/start buses that journey is a question of minutes.
For America it's not even that things are too sprawly (they are not), it's that everything has been designed exclusively around cars so everything else sucks even if the distances are not too bad. Another example would be peachtree, GA. Not nearly so car dependent as most places, but they went a novel route providing lots of gold cart tracks, making the city very accessible. The point of that is that despite being a somewhat normal-sprawl level of place, it's very accessible to low speed (max 20mph) levels of transport, and so well within the reach of bikes and ebikes too.
Re:Surprised Pikachu face (Score:5, Insightful)
How the hell do ya'll haul stuff home from the store on your bicycles???
I mean, a typical weekend for me, I want to BBQ on the smoker.
I'll run to Costco and get a vac-pak whole brisket...about 12-15lbs. Let's say I get some other things...case of cokes and/or water, maybe a case of beer, etc if having friends over and watching football and let's just say, it's a small Costco trip with pretty much just that and not a lot of other stuff, which I often do stock up on.
And yes, I hit Costco at least bi-weekly.
Now...how do you propose I get this home on a bicycle?
How would I get this home on public transport like a bus?
I'd have to somehow haul all this on a bus, hope I had open seats to put it....and that doesn't cover how the heck I'd get all my stuff from store to bus stop and then bus stop to home.
This is just one scenario....Weekly, I generally look over the grocery specials at the stores in my area. I pick out what's the best items on sale at each store and I generally run to 2-3 stores to pick up what's on sale. I do this in one trip...so that I have things to cook and eat on all week.
I rarely eat out, I cook mostly at home.
I have a bicycle, a nice one...I ride it for exercise and entertainment, but, lol....it isn't a practical mode of actual travel and transport for my normal every day life....not the MANY people in my neighborhood or typical US neighborhoods across the country.
Many folks would rather not pay $3K+ a month to live in what can barely be described as one bedroom apt in NYC, when they can have a 3+ bedroom single family house with a nice yard for a house payment less than that 1 bedroom apt in many places across the US.
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There's your problem...density.
Not everyone wants to live in apartments, sharing walls, stacked up on top of each other like rats.
I had to live in apartments as a college student and then a young professional.
I considered it a LARGE m
Re:Surprised Pikachu face (Score:4)
The only ways to reduce traffic (short of an outright ban on personal vehicles) are either to make walking a more viable and attractive option, and/or to provide better mass transit that reduces the number of vehicles by transporting more people at once.
Not necessarily the only way. In some cases, human behaviors when driving can be demonstrated to be one of the causes of traffic congestion in the first place. In a scenario where all the cars on the road are self driving and every car has its position, speed, etc. negotiated with all of the other cars on the road there is the potential for traffic jams to be greatly reduced. Consider, for example a two lane road in the city where a truck stops in the right lane and the traffic backs up behind it, with everyone trying to change lanes into the left lane to get around it. A traffic system like I described would not stop that from being a bottleneck, but fully coordinated driving between all the vehicles involved could allow the bottleneck to be cleared a lot faster. With such a system, you could eliminate traffic lights. Potentially, cars would not even need to stop at intersections, they would just drive by each other with sufficient tolerances to avoid collisions. Lanes would not even need to be one way any more. You could have two lanes and each direction dynamically turn into three lanes in one direction and one in the other as traffic demands. Obviously though, in a situation like that the rules of the road would be too complex and hard to follow for human drivers, and any human drivers on the road would mess up traffic horribly. so this would be an all or nothing sort of thing. Also, not understanding the rules of the road as your self-driving vehicle whizzes past other cars could end up being pretty stressful for the passengers. Also, the self-driving obviously has to be perfect. So, this is probably not happening any time soon. It would be a conceivable way to allow much more transit on the existing roads. though.
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Even if that were possible.
WTF would I want to do something so inconvenient and a PITA when I have the easy to use, door-to-door on my schedule convenience of my car?
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Well, pretty much everywhere that is not super urban in the US is built the same.
What do you propose...tearing everything up and starting over from scratch?
We don't have enough money now for anything, how the hell would we afford to redo from scratch?
And, what makes you think we want to? Most of us really like the life and lifestyle we have in the US, and the nice thing is, it is such a large country that
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Re:Surprised Pikachu face (Score:5, Insightful)
People taking an Uber instead of public transport as well. Remember, for a long time Uber was losing money to take market share and it was investor money so Uber didn't mind burning through it by subsidizing their service.
Re:Surprised Pikachu face (Score:5, Interesting)
Because in theory there would be multiple people in the one car at the same time, thus fewer cars and even if everyone rode solo there would, in theory, be fewer cars overall being parked etc as people would take a ride share to work/etc instead of their own vehicle. In theory.
The reality is people still need to drive to work. It's cheaper to own and drive in than Uber both ways to the suburbs every day. Everyone can't afford to live near work in the city. I used to take the train for an hour, but still had to drive to the train station.
And ride sharing... wow... I'm tired it once. My 10 minute solo ride turned into a 30 minutes shared trip and I only saved about $4.
WFH (Score:5, Insightful)
The work from home experiment certainly reduced traffic. A LOT.
It reduced pollution as well.
The push to return to the office shows an utter and very selfish disregard for environmental health.
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It wasn't just work from home. A lot of public places and businesses were also closed to gatherings... so there was basically no place to go even if you weren't working from home.
The ability to work from home will likely have an impact on peak commuter traffic, which is probably good (except putting a huge dent in mass transit revenues), but ultimately people still want to be places other than home and work so it's a bit questionable what the overall impact would actually be. Don't expect peak pandemic lock
Re:WFH (Score:4, Informative)
Re:WFH (Score:5, Insightful)
If I'm going to be forced to pay for it anyway, I might as well pay less.
As you said if few are using it the tickets contribute nothing (but there is unfairness for those who are paying and never using). If everyone is using it, it's even fairer to pay for it from taxes and skip out all the middlemen and parasites involved in "making sure people pay for the tickets".
[1] Makes more sense for places like Singapore where only a small minority of the taxpayers would never use the public transport. But less sense where the majority never use public transport, unless the majority are still fine paying for it.
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Luxembourg is blazing the trail here.
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There is exactly 3 differences between my office work and my home work.
In the office I have a shittier work space with smaller monitors, an hour drive, and I'm wearing noise canceling headphones all day while I sit on zooms with people from other offices.
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Actually, here in London, WFH didn't reduce traffic, it just changed where it is. There is now much more traffic in the outer suburbs during the day (per TfL's annual report). Furthermore, any drop in pollution levels in the centre of London hasn't been significant enough to bring the air quality within legal limits: the Major of London has just expanded London's Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) from just centre to encompass the whole of the city.
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Perhaps the most convenient thing about owning a car is for bringing your weekly/monthly shopping home; essentially a glorified shopping trolley. But nowadays, most of the supermarkets do deliveries for that sort of thing
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On the other hand, both Uber and autonomous vehicles should ease the parking challenges.
And theoretically free up parking spaces for dedicated public transport lanes, bicycle lanes or even cars!
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Indeed. Elimination of on-street parking would be a big improvement.
Re: Surprised Pikachu face (Score:2)
Exactly. The same lone driver headed to work has opted to be the lone passenger headed to work with less stress (he's got the po'man's chauffeur)--he can read the paper en route
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You would expect Uber would increase the amount of traffic but decrease the number of parked cars. Most of our cities have 50% or more of their public space given over to cars and of that a significant percentage is to parked cars.
But, yes, overall, the idea that doing things to make car use easier will reduce congestion is foolish. The only way you could improve the current car is by making it much smaller (even like they used to be would be an advantage). After that, you need to ensure that every other fo
Taking into account changes in behavior (Score:2)
Our research was technically right, but we had not taken into account changes in human behavior.
This is precisely what's wrong with a whole lot of academic research.
We saw this in full view when the COVID pandemic came around. The research was right, that masks, social distancing, and vaccines help. But the scientists failed to take into account human behavior, and the fierce backlash that resulted from the strict rules that were enforced.
A lot of social welfare programs similarly miss the mark. When you give people money to help them be able to afford fresh produce and other nice things, there is an
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None of us are immune from stupidity.
Re: Taking into account changes in behavior (Score:3, Insightful)
"There was no immunity imparted by the vaccines and infection rates are effectively the same for vaccinated/unvaxed."
Tell us you don't know how vaccines work etc.
It has become ever so fashionable to be ignorant.
Uber? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Uber was an early unicorn in the field of the gig economy movement at that time that promised flexible work.
The gig economy was latched onto in the US as a way of making people work more low paying jobs so that companies don't have to pay people a livable wage.
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I saw a guy on TV the other night complaining how he couldn't make enough to live from working for Uber (and a bunch of other ridesharing scams too I think) which made me think he needs to get a better job.
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they were competing with taxis
Uber expanded at three times the rate that taxis declined.
Most people use Uber as an alternative to renting a car, driving their own car, or using public transit, rather than as an alternative to taxis.
in order to avoid being regulated as an employer.
In most jurisdictions, Uber drivers are contractors.
Most taxi drivers are also contractors.
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In other words, poor people get out of my way (Score:4, Interesting)
They argue that Uber is more comfortable than walking, buses and subways. I disagree and there is nothing comfortable about having to take a ride with someone desperate to have to drive Uber but ...
Even if it was more comfortable, the economics don't make sense? An Uber ride has got to be 5-10 times more expensive.
Only thing I can say that it is faster and there is no parking penalty as with cars. But that only speaks to the pathetic state of public transportation here.
So we built a whole transportation system around cars and fubared all public transit, and when use cars instead of public transit, the professors go oh noes.
So, cars and convinience is for the elites, you poors should use the barely functional transit system, bike with SUVs that can kill you or seriously injure at any second or walk with dangerous traffic. Only the ones who can afford the cars should drive, all the regular poors clear the roads.
If we have autonomous vehicles and everyone can afford mobility, what will happen??? My SUV might be stuck in traffic for 2 minutes more than usual.
Re:In other words, poor people get out of my way (Score:4, Interesting)
Depends on the ratio of capital to operating costs. Having a nice luxury car (>$150k) that you use for 5,000 miles in a year will likely be more expensive than having a driver that uses the car for 50,000 (revenue) miles per year. Likewise if parking is $50/day at work or the airport, it is quite possible it is cheaper to hail a ride.
After college I went about 25 years before actually purchasing a car. I might have spent a lot on taxis, but nowhere near as much as insurance would have cost over that duration, to say nothing about the capital or fuel cost.
Re:In other words, poor people get out of my way (Score:4)
It's not a "for the elites" priority, it's a "for auto makers" priority.
They shilled and lobbied this automobile world, specially in the US.
Cities purposefully zoned to optimize the need of cars over simply walking, or taking a train.
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Was it? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problems with human driven cars is erratic driving, by which I mean even slight variations in speed, such as rubbernecking at car accidents, cause those waves in traffic which are responsible for jams.
Automated driving, when coordinated by inter-vehicle communications that can "see" past multiple cars in front of you, have the potential to keep traffic flowing.
Re:Was it? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't ever recall anyone making the argument that Uber was supposed to help traffic
Then you weren't paying attention. Not only did another area of MIT [mit.edu] back in 2016 say the Uber taxi service could potentially reduce taxi traffic by 75%, even executives at Uber and Lyft [jalopnik.com] both said their taxis would reduce traffic. That was in 2018.
Private car ownership in cities will all but end by 2025, one exec said. There’ll be “no more traffic in Boston in five years,” another said.
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Uber was no longer a carpooling company by 2016.
You can order a carpool with Uber ("uberpool"). It reduces your fare, and you meet interesting people (a good and a bad thing). It ended because of covid, but now it's back.
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Great.
The study still doesn't apply to what Uber is as a whole.
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The problems with human driven cars is erratic driving, by which I mean even slight variations in speed, such as rubbernecking at car accidents, cause those waves in traffic which are responsible for jams. Automated driving, when coordinated by inter-vehicle communications that can "see" past multiple cars in front of you, have the potential to keep traffic flowing.
And then a hacker could come in and create an epic traffic jam.
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Yeah same here, I thought it was just supposed to make money and "disrupt" the taxi business. But then again, we've always been at war with Eurasia.
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I don't ever recall anyone making the argument that Uber was supposed to help traffic.
You weren't paying attention to Uber's CEO. He still repeats this lie constantly. Hell they were putting it up on billboards only a couple of years ago https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com] despite knowing it was false.
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Uber and Lyft executives are just doing propaganda. Not an argument to be taken seriously, and not to be taken as intentionally making the argument. They're just saying whatever investors want to hear.
Then you weren't paying attention.
I'm glad you have so much time on your hands to pay attention to every single claim made by companies looking to attract VCs for funding rounds.
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Automated driving, when coordinated by inter-vehicle communications that can "see" past multiple cars in front of you, have the potential to keep traffic flowing.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha,
This one is even less believable than "uber will help traffic".
The notion that all cars will talk to each other at light speed and know instantly where every other car is and what it is going to do is pure fantasy. The kind of thing I expect to read in a Neal Asher novel. The main problem is the speed of authentication, A.K.A. the reasons I cant tell your car I'm am ambulance and have it pull over for me. For this reason alone a centralised system to control traffic is doo
"'Uber Was Supposed to Help Traffic" (Score:5, Insightful)
Who was so mentally deficient that they believed this?
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Ridesharing would indeed help with traffic, it turns two trips into one. And it was necessary to pretend it was ridesharing so as to skip all the taxi regulation. Of course, summoning a taxi, such as via the Uber app, turns one trip into two. But if you're calling it non-taxi ridesharing then clearly it must make traffic better. It's really interesting, like with Santa Claus where society just decided we're going with this. Only this time, incredibly quickly.
I've known about the power of motivated belief on
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Ridesharing would indeed help with traffic, it turns two trips into one. And it was necessary to pretend it was ridesharing so as to skip all the taxi regulation. Of course, summoning a taxi, such as via the Uber app, turns one trip into two.
Except Uber have an actual ridesharing service called Uber Pool (not Uber You-call-a-taxi-and-pay-for-it-via-an-app-X) and the whole point of this story is that even that makes traffic worse.
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Who was so mentally deficient that they believed this?
Uber's CEO.
Misunderstanding part of the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
I see where the idea that buses etc. are more efficient and cleaner misunderstands part of the problem. People don't use transit merely to move from one place to another. They use transit because they need to do something that requires going from one place to another. For instance, if you need to get groceries, you need to go to the grocery store and come back with groceries. Buses, bikes and walking may be efficient and clean, but they really suck when you have to haul a load of groceries back with you. Cars that can take you directly from the store back home with your groceries are a much more effective solution to the problem even if they aren't as efficient. Solving the transit problem requires also solving the problems we use transit to solve, like getting groceries home from the store, even if that means you need to give up efficiency for effectiveness.
Mass transit, like buses or trains, is efficient but it makes the assumption that a lot of people are going to be following the exact same route. That's not usually the case for the entire trip. You need a mix so you can use mass transit only where you can put a lot of people on a single route and use cars or something at each end where you have a wide variety of routes with very few people following any one route. You also have to have some alternate way of getting cargo (like that load of groceries) to where it's owner is going so they don't have to try to fit it on a bus or bicycle. Coming up with solutions to this isn't really that hard, the real hard part is finding solutions that don't involve redesigning the city layout or road structure overnight because that just isn't possible and doing it over time would cause intolerable disruption so that's not going to fly either.
And then you have children, the elderly and the disabled. Bicycles and walking suck for those groups. Even buses are marginal for them. If you ignore the needs of those groups, your solution is going to be rejected before you even get finished presenting it.
Re:Misunderstanding part of the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
For instance, if you need to get groceries, you need to go to the grocery store and come back with groceries. Buses, bikes and walking may be efficient and clean, but they really suck when you have to haul a load of groceries back with you.
I'm reminded of something: Delivery. I remember first seeing grocery delivery proposed back in the original Death Wish movie. Lady shopped, then told the grocery store where to deliver the groceries to.
These days, most of the grocery store chains have delivery, Amazon delivers at least some groceries, etc...
For $13/month, Walmart will deliver to your house. Let's say it's a 10 mile round trip, at $0.25/mile*, a single trip is $2.50. Just to keep things reasonable but round.
So, 5-6 deliveries and that fee(which also provides other services, let's value the paramount membership at $0 because you don't like star trek and whatever) is paid for.
That's like 1.5 deliveries a week.
That said, for bicycling: It works a lot better in many countries. After all, if you're bicycling significantly, you're a lot less likely to end up disabled. Note: My grandfather kept bicycling quite late into life, and he had significant spinal damage.
Children: Unless they're extremely young, bicycling places is about the best thing for them. Exercise is good.
Elderly: They can still bicycle, just slower. Maybe even not if they can have an electrically boosted bike.
Disabled: With everybody else off the roads, the ones who have to move in things like vans can do so easier than currently. Especially if they're self driving.
*Fuel, wear and tear, insurance, time, etc...
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Used to be that you'd do the shopping and then the store would deliver your groceries. That was well over 50 years back and I don't have any idea of the cost, if any. My parents got groceries that way. Much better then letting someone in a rush grab whatever.
Re:Misunderstanding part of the problem (Score:4)
Well, I see at least three options there:
1. Stop worrying about "quality" quite so much. It's part of why we have so much food waste in our country.
2. Shop just for fresh produce and such in person. I could see a future where you get ~70% of your groceries delivered, which means that walking/bicycling/bussing to pick up the rest is much more manageable. Hell, if we get more dense cities, it'd be possible to have small grocery stores like what I saw when I was in germany that specialize in fresh stuff, you just go to a bigger store elsewhere for the more non-perishable stuff less often. You hit the small place up for the night's dinner and next day's lunch or such. It would help if we had more of a push for it, of course.
2a. As dryeo said, and was demonstrated in the Death Wish movie, it's possible to do your shopping at the store THEN have it delivered. It's a service that might be offered again in the future.
3. Pay a premium to get premium product. There's at least three different grocery chains that will deliver to me. I could experiment and see who delivers the best stuff.
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Grocery delivery sucks if you care about the quality of non-packaged goods.
My neighbour gets his groceries delivered. They look, feel and taste exactly like the ones I get from the store. Don't generalise.
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For instance, if you need to get groceries, you need to go to the grocery store and come back with groceries
At least for groceries, that's not a big deal if you're living in a walkable place. I have 3 grocery stores within a 5 block radius, plus a couple more ethnic grocers. I don't recall the last time I actually used my car for grocery shopping. Yeah, I tend to only shop for 2 or 3 days at a time (other than when picking up staples) but it's really nice.
This is the whole point of the whole "15 minute cities" thing. Within a 15 minute walk, I have everything I could possibly want. The only time I need to use my
Re:Misunderstanding part of the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the problems with walking (or biking or other 2 wheeled travel) is that in some parts of the country we have this phenomena called weather. It can be too cold, too hot, or raining.
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When I was young, late 60's, most grocery stores delivered, don't remember the cost ever being discussed but the parents, or one parent, would go shopping, come home and perhaps an hour later the groceries would be delivered.
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Buses, bikes and walking may be efficient and clean, but they really suck when you have to haul a load of groceries back with you.
I don't understand. I've never driven my car to get groceries, even when catering for a large party. What's wrong with your bike? You don't have a basket on it? Let me guess, you think a "bicycle" is some hunched over carbon fibre racing thing?
Solving the transit problem requires also solving the problems we use transit to solve, like getting groceries home from the store
I see the little European grandma across the road from us having no problem hauling groceries home using the bus. They have these little wheel trolley things so even the old and frail (who definitely shouldn't be driving a car) can move things around with them.
Cars that can take you directly from the store back home with your groceries are a much more effective solution to the problem even if they aren't as efficient.
If you
Re:Misunderstanding part of the problem (Score:5, Informative)
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Buses, bikes and walking may be efficient and clean, but they really suck when you have to haul a load of groceries back with you.
They don't, if you have the right equipment.
For shopping by bike, a good solution is a bike rack and a pair of pannier bags. You can also hang bulky light packages, like a bag of paper towels on the handlebars. When shopping by bike, I typically did more shopping trips than shopping by car. But it is also easier to stop at a shop by bike, than by car. I can typically lock my bike much closer to the door, and load my panniers directly from the checkout stand, without needing to transfer the groceries b
Jevons so-called paradox, and framing (Score:5, Interesting)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The perception of a paradox - and this article - arise from hoping that people will take the benefit of increased efficiency in one way - by reducing traffic - instead of another - by traveling more - thus discounting the one that people actually want and choose, as somehow not a "good." But it is a good - traveling more is what people want. You hoped the safety gains from anti-lock braking would reduce fatalities, but instead it increased how fast they drive while fatalities stayed constant... OK, but now they get to travel more and go faster. Your wanting them to use the gain one way and not the other is your problem.
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All that being said, I don't recall anyone making the claim that Uber/Lyft would DECREASE traffic.. it would certainly reduce a subset of traffic, but the proliferation of its use would essentially cancel it out.
Robotaxies are a different creature because they could PARK when not in use. Uber/Lyft are done by part time workers (or full time depending on the person
Which issue to address? And more importantly... (Score:2)
When my daughter moves to the states, I will provide her a generous allowance for robotaxis to increase her safety. Especially if she goes to a bar. I don't want her anywhere near a subway or an Uber or taxi driver in those circumstances.
Do we try to reduce driving or
A) use technology to reduce carbon footprints? Fleet cars should be required to meet higher standards than personal vehicles. Also, they should be required to have substantially longer service
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How has Uber impacted DUI? Or has it impacted crime?
Not sure about crime otherwise, but I remember reading a study that Uber dropped DUI in at least one city by a significant factor. To the point that the police threw a bit of a fit over an anticipated rise in DUI when some regulations to drive out Uber were passed. The ease and cheapness of Uber in that city really dropped the DUI rate.
As for "try to reduce driving or..." I'd answer with "why not both?"
Basically, we use technology to reduce the carbon footprint, but keep in mind that after a point, we nee
A natural progression that I think most are missin (Score:2)
"Ride sharing" was never really a thing in a true sense, it was just a slightly techy taxi service where one driver took one customer to a destination. Robo taxis will (eventually) be a much different beast. Where ride sharing was done with personal vehicles, robo taxis are going to be vehicles at least customized if not flat out designed for that purpose. And with advanced routing software they aren't going to be running around with a single customer taking up an entire vehicle. Once the bugs are worke
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There are other ride-sharing companies which are genuinely ride sharing - but they're intercity trips rather than intracity.
Why is this "bad"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Above all, we must put in place smart regulatory and tax regimes that allow all sustainable mobility modes — including autonomous services — to scale safely and intelligently. They should include, for example, congestion fees to discourage overuse of individual vehicles.
The only people who could possibly be discouraged by such a fee are on the low end of the economic spectrum. The rich lawyer visiting a club in his bugatti will bear the cost while hardly thinking about it. The mobility-impaired grandma struggling to pay her grocery bills will have to settle for a phone call instead of getting to see her grandkids' smiles. The people writing this regressive policy will taut a "great success" as the traffic decreases, before hopping in their own personal vehicles to catch a private jet to the next international climate conference.
Real solutions look to make average peoples' lives better (or at least not worse). Cheap electric cars, more efficient catalytic converters, closer grocery stores. Power plants that use clean - and preferably cheaper - energy. *Not* making it more expensive to have human interaction.
Uber Pool was so cheap it increased overall city travel: For every mile of personal driving it removed, it added 2.6 miles of people who otherwise would have taken another mode of transportation.
And this is... a huge success! They've increased purchasing power and mobility while offsetting a significant portion of the negative externality involved in doing so. This almost certainly increases economic output and reduces poverty overall, leading to more tax revenue, which can absolutely be invested in green technologies, as well as social services.
When bureaucrats decide to look at a single metric as if the entire world revolves around that number, they wind up implementing terrible policies, pretty much regardless of what that metric is.
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Uber Pool was so cheap it increased overall city travel: For every mile of personal driving it removed, it added 2.6 miles of people who otherwise would have taken another mode of transportation.
And this is... a huge success! They've increased purchasing power and mobility while offsetting a significant portion of the negative externality involved in doing so. This almost certainly increases economic output and reduces poverty overall, leading to more tax revenue, which can absolutely be invested in green technologies, as well as social services.
When bureaucrats decide to look at a single metric as if the entire world revolves around that number, they wind up implementing terrible policies, pretty much regardless of what that metric is.
I don't follow how people being stuck in traffic in an Uber instead of spending the same time taking the bus/train would increase economic output, other then the subsidies spent on Uber (by investors), and now those subsidies are gone.
As a bonus, using public transit often means walking a couple of blocks, creating a healthier population, which does increase economic output.
Not since the very early days (Score:3)
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This isn't about Uber's taxi service. This is about Uber Pool, their actual ridesharing service, ... that also makes traffic worse.
Robotaxis can cooperate with each other (Score:2)
To keep traffic flowing smoothly or, if it's not possible, have you wait for a ride at home till capacity is available rather than sit in the middle of highway for an hour. Very different from Uber.
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have you wait for a ride at home till capacity is available
Might as well take the bus.
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What bus? This story was posted on a Sunday, and buses in Fort Wayne, Indiana, don't run at all on Sundays or major holidays.
Amusing Disconnect (Score:2)
He states a premise that cars are more convenient and comfortable than walking, buses and subways, which is why they are so popular; then he suggests that the solution is more walking, buses, and subways. That does not compute.
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Poor people shouldn't have a choice (with middle class included with the poor). They are only there to maintain the infrastructure for the people who matter.
Should consider BOTH negative and positive aspects (Score:4, Insightful)
Since a ride hailing service typically takes one point-to-point (or close to it) unlike mass transit, those choosing to use ride hailing rather than mass transit likely saved a substantial amount of time by using a ride hailing service. This time has value (and time, for an individual, is effectively a priceless resource -- one really can't buy time) and may also result in more productive work being done.
It's also easier to work efficiently on something such as reading a document when sitting in the back of a climate controlled car taking you point to point compared to perhaps transferring twice between lines/modes of transportation and waiting for the connecting form of transportation. Doing effective work on short haul public transportation is pretty hard as one spends time standing on platforms/bus stops (sometimes in less than ideal weather), being jostled by other passengers, needing (in some cases) to keep your head on a swivel to maintain personal safety, and being distracted by buskers and crazies.
Even getting home 15 minutes earlier to allow you to spend more time with your kid and make sure they are doing and/or help them with their homework could have a positive impact on society decades in the future long after you're dead.
One studying something like this shouldn't just consider the negative externalities of a change unless they are also going to consider the positive externalities of that change.
Doesn't solve most of the problems it's meant to (Score:2)
So I've used Uber a couple times, notably when traveling to and from medical appointments where I wasn't supposed to drive. Longer distance trips, impractical to make via public transit. It helped. It didn't do anything a taxi wouldn't have done. In general, I move around on public transit when I can, and drive when it's far more convenient, e.g. shopping.
I drove for Uber for a week, to see what it's about. If you run your ass off, you can make $30+ an hour, so I see the appeal. Especially for people
How do you not understand? (Score:2)
How can you not understand the market incentive for the added cost for the convenience of a single occupant car?
If people wanted to ride share they would take the subway. That costs a lot less - because its less expensive service, but also because people hate it so it needs a lower cost to be seen as valuable enough to use.
In manhattan, Iâ(TM)d almost always rather walk than take a shared vehicle with a complete stranger. The driver is bad enough.
I suppose itâ(TM)d come as a surprise that people d
Marchettiâ(TM)s constant anyone? (Score:2)
Itâ(TM)s the timeâ¦governs the diameter of cities, the favored modes of travel, etc. Almost all arguments for public transit ignore this, and thus surprise âoeeveryoneâ when the scheme fails.
Again not taking into account human behaviour (Score:2)
Our research was technically right, but we had not taken into account changes in human behavior.
Then try to take it into account in this new forecast. Specifically changes in the regulators' and city planners' behaviour. Perhaps robotaxis won't be allowed in the cities, perhaps only robobuses will be. Robo-trains and robo-metro should come before any of that, potentially reducing the price of public transport to almost free.
In fact, the changes that will come to traffic if ever the robo-drivers become a reality, are impossible to predict. Perhaps they will generate a change in where workplaces are loc
CO2 is good for the enviroment (Score:2)
Seriously, what's with the "war on carbon?" It's asinine and ignorant. The earth is currently carbon deficient compared to where it used to be, and CO2 is plant food.
Regarding the OP.... government run transportation is not the solution to anything. Government is never the solution to anything. Government can't do anything competently... it can't run the schools, it can run the pension, it can't run the economy, it can't run the mail, and it can't run the roads, busses, or trains.
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Autonomous vehicles do solve the parking shortage problem.
I stop at Starbucks for a coffee and instruct my car to circle the block until I'm ready to leave.
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Autonomous vehicles do solve the parking shortage problem.
I stop at Starbucks for a coffee and instruct my car to circle the block until I'm ready to leave.
Creating more traffic.
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There are generally laws requiring a minimum amount of car parking. In effect it's a subsidy for cars because any building that gets built is required by law to put parking spaces
Robotaxis don't need that subsidy, they can just circle around and never park. Problem solved.
it's UberX Share (Score:2)
I think someone might have been confused as to the meaning of ridesharing in this context. As far as I know, almost no one turns into an Uber driver on the way to work.
I'm interested to see a source concluding that "almost no one" uses UberX Share [uber.com] (formerly Uber Pool), the service described in the summary that is more like a carpool than like a conventional taxi.
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Sadly, such statistics don't seem to be readily available, for or against, when I went looking because it sounded like an interesting question.
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You can also use 2 person cabs which can side park 2 cars into a single parallel parking spot.
Shame self driving requires human level AI.