A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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Highway spending increased by 90% in 2021. This is one of many reasons why car traffic is growing faster than population growth.
While I'm a strong proponent of reducing and possibly eliminating car use, this image is disingenuous. They neatly packed 69 (nice) people into a medium bus, sure. But when showing cars, it's almost 1 persons per car (I counted 15 cars in a row and there are 4 rows, so 60 cars). You can definitely use cars more efficiently than that.
Assuming that actually autonomous self-driving cars exist, they could be extremely efficient. Especially if you treat them like ride sharing taxis. In other words, a lot of people could share the same car and that would reduce the amount of owned cars. They also never waste space being parked. So I can see how when we make a real self-driving car, it can potentially reduce traffic. Especially for all those cases where public transportation doesn't work.
And what the heck is a "connected car"?
I'd argue against that.
The concept of robot taxi sounds nice, but it devolves into an unsustainable mess. Ride sharing isn't simple, especially when we talk about uncertain way points. Meaningfully matching cases where people can share a robot car with completely random drop off is a logistical nightmare. I used to work at a Ride hailing company as an analyst, and people being unhappy with the duration of the shared ride was the biggest issue for that category (removing for generic cases like payment issues).
Additionally, I'm sure it's going to be a safety factor. I'm unlikely to get into a car with a random stranger when there's literally no one else in the car. Miss me with trusting some corporate with safety in such cases.
Thank you, that is a very interesting insight. But besides sharing cars in parallel (multiple passengers at once) there can also be sequential sharing, which is, I understand, a regular taxi without a driver. But I think that high availability of cars like that, which are cheap, would still reduce the amount of car owners, and consequently increase public transportation utilization.
Why do something that complicated when bus and tram lines are way more efficient? Cities need to take the money they apend on subsidizing car ownership and invest it into mass transit.
Because trams and busses can't fulfill every need. Certain point to point transportation options still need to exist, we just need to make them as efficient as possible.
And as I mentioned in another comment, ~~turns out busses aren't really as efficient as I thought they were. Fully packed small cars are way more efficient~~.
Edit: Changed my mind. See previous comment.
Most cars only ever have 1 person in them, 2 occasionally, and rarely ever more than that inlesst it's a damily trip somewhere. A bus with 5 passengers is taking up less space than 5 cars of any size. Even in mass transit Meccas like The Netherlands obviously still have private cars that people use. But designing transport infrastructure around more efficient methods allows for use cases where a personal car iis necessary fleeting. Obviously moving trucks and delivery vans can't be replaced by a tram. But a well designed city wouldn't require me to drive my car just to pick up eggs and a loaf of bread, or to get a beer at a local bar, or go to a baseball game.
Sequential sharing isn't sharing. That's how any cab operators functions.
The problems you're mentioning aren't problems with human drivers, but the problems with perfect allocation. Robo taxis won't solve them.