Personally, I think that all the self driving efforts would do well to be tightly coupled to city planning going forward and we should be specifically regulating toward "driverless zones" where a grid system can handle all traffic, a city switch, effectively.
There are efforts to fit driverless cars to horrifically planned streets, but I don't see any cities approaching it from the other direction.
This is all said though because I freaking hate cars and the entire ecosystem surrounding them.
>but I don't see any cities approaching it from the other direction.
Can you blame them? There's barely money to maintain existing infrastructure, let alone rework it. It doesn't matter if it would pay for itself in 25 years, if that were the case we would be powered by 100% nuclear power years ago, investors don't bite on those numbers and republicans don't pass those budgets.
Maybe the driverless car players should work with the cities to improve infrastructure. They have all the capital, after all. However that logical reasoning isn't how the valley plays ball. Look at bird, look at uber, look at any 'pioneer' service entering these cities. They stomp their way into markets without trying to reach out to local governments and work with them, the city officials of course are annoyed and pass unproductive regulations, then the tech companies throw a tantrum and plead their pitiful case to their users. It's childish behavior that wastes everyone's time and money.
This is what should really be happening with the cities viying for the business of Amazon, Twitter, whomever.
I'm constantly flabbergasted by how short sighted both cities and companies are about the long term impact agreements will make on a given area. They think in terms of placating concerns via taxes but don't look at the true opportunity loss from not addressing future quality of life in an area. FFS tech companies should deeply be judged on this factor when being assessed for a new HQ, as they clearly are not currently going through a rigorous process which will play out in a decade plus.
I'm very pro-train and anti-car, but in many situations you still need a motorized means of transport for the last mile. I think on-demand self-driving cars could be a good match to solve the last mile (together with bicycles).
> Self driving cars are totally the wrong direction we should be going in, and it's going to cost the US more in the long run
This goes against the research I’ve seen, which suggests a self-driving fleet can more-efficiently transport a dispersed population like America’s than rail. (For the relevant distances.)
Also, anecdote: after Uber, I use the subway and regional rail system more. It solves the last-mike and “should I rent a car” problems.
The car drives you to the bus, the bus drives you to the train, simple. The train is scheduled to depart at the best time for all the buses to arrive at. Less waiting, less buses and trains that are half empty.
For this to work the self driving car needs to be expensive enough for people to care to organize their trips this way. So we will need to pass road tax in cities to account for the externality of congesting the roads.
As these cars are driven by corporates with constant GPS monitoring this will be more easily enforced than ever
Yes, ideally driverless cars would evolve together with the cities they drive in.
Unfortunately, it would take a decade for the government bureaucracies involved to even get started with that effort, so we'll have to make do with just the vehicle side for quite a while.
Volvo was looking into that. They want to drive magnetized nails into pavement on some Swedish highways to provide a lane reference. That can be sensed through snow, and snowplows can be equipped to sense it, so it has uses beyond self driving.
There are efforts to fit driverless cars to horrifically planned streets, but I don't see any cities approaching it from the other direction.
This is all said though because I freaking hate cars and the entire ecosystem surrounding them.