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Decades away is fine with me. I'm planning to be alive at least a few more decades. And if not, somebody will be around to enjoy it.
My dream vision is a Metro Atlanta where the road system = the transit system. You walk out the door at wherever you are, you hop into the next available autonomous vehicle, you ride to wherever you want to go, you get out. The vehicle leaves.
Maybe you're the only person in the vehicle, or maybe there's 4 people, or maybe it's a bus and there's 40 people. Need an appropriately balanced combo of all of that. And yes, plus the train lines. All working together, as part of the same system.
Far fewer total # of cars needed. Because instead of sitting there all day and night in a parking space not being used, our fleet of cars are transporting people around all day and night. And when they do need to park, it would be in designated areas, mostly outside of the dense parts of the city.
2. Eventually someday transitioning everything to AV, will reduce congestion caused by human error and accidents, and reduce the stress and other downsides of road congestion, and will smooth out the experience of the trip. Etc etc.
3. You still need mass transit and fixed public transit lines in dense urban areas and along dense corridors. Because, yes, there would be generally too much congestion if cars are relied upon by themselves, even with Uber and AV. (But, honestly, with 100% Uber AV's on the streets, the existence of congestion would not be that bad of a deal at all.)
Certainly you don't believe there will ever be 100% AV, right? At least not for many, many decades. If not hundreds of years.
So, now if I leave work with my 80lb. equipment case and want to meet some friends on the way home for drinks, then stop by the store on the way home, I have to drag that damn box with me the whole time?
Will these AVs be able to drop me off and pick me up at a specified door of an old run down warehouse, waiting their turn, and back in as required in an unmarked pavement area? How much control do I have over what the vehicle does? Not interested if I'm 100% at the mercy of some algorithms.
So, now if I leave work with my 80lb. equipment case and want to meet some friends on the way home for drinks, then stop by the store on the way home, I have to drag that damn box with me the whole time?
Well, in such a world, surely that particular problem would have solutions that would be come up with. Maybe there would be a temporary locked storage place or something, at establishments. Instead of parking lots.
Anyway, so there are basically 3 future world scenarios, that I think would all be cool and better than today:
1. Uber AV world (what I just described)
2. Uber world (but not AV) - most of the advantages of that world, without the AV problems
3. AV world (but not Uber) - all the AV advantages, but there's still parking/ privately owned vehicles
I like any/all of those possibilities. And I also like the idea of semi-AV, like autopilot mode. Something which gets you somewhere approximate to the best total sum of the human driver and the AI driver.
Decades away is fine with me. I'm planning to be alive at least a few more decades. And if not, somebody will be around to enjoy it.
My dream vision is a Metro Atlanta where the road system = the transit system. You walk out the door at wherever you are, you hop into the next available autonomous vehicle, you ride to wherever you want to go, you get out. The vehicle leaves.
Maybe you're the only person in the vehicle, or maybe there's 4 people, or maybe it's a bus and there's 40 people. Need an appropriately balanced combo of all of that. And yes, plus the train lines. All working together, as part of the same system.
Far fewer total # of cars needed. Because instead of sitting there all day and night in a parking space not being used, our fleet of cars are transporting people around all day and night. And when they do need to park, it would be in designated areas, mostly outside of the dense parts of the city.
Primal, did you actually read the article?
It doesn't really contradict anything you're talking about. Instead, it's a rebuttal to people who think that Ubers and AVs are THE solution to traffic, hard stop. The article is a rebuttal to people who don't think any high-capacity or greater transit system should be built because they think Uber will fix everything.
The points made in the article are not against what you've been saying, yet it seems like you're trying to take issue with it.
Yes, I did read it. And it's not that I disagree with factual statistics or points made in the article. I just disagree with some of the opinions drawn as its conclusions.
Namely, that the space inefficiency of a cars-based solution, would be any actual issue. Because in e-hail robo-car world, or Uber AV world, whatever you want to call it- the inevitable road congestion is a very minor nuisance for the rider. It just takes time, time where you have to read articles on your phone, or do whatever, while you wait. But so does waiting for the train, or waiting on the next train after the next train, because the rush hour crowds filled up that train while you were still in line. Or your delays because you have to wait through 5 train stops where you're not going before you get to the stop where you're going. That adds time to a commute. And road congestion adds time to a commute. But the latter commute seems more comfortable and preferable to me, at least in 'AV world'.
I support MARTA heavy rail to Cobb County. I'd support it even in a future robo-car world. I think trains are great. I think mass transit is a great way to move mass amounts of people efficiently and quickly.
But, in robo-car world, it really wouldn't be that necessary. I'd still support it, but it wouldn't be as crucial or as helpful as it would be if the line opened tomorrow.
Yes, I did read it. And it's not that I disagree with factual statistics or points made in the article. I just disagree with some of the opinions drawn as its conclusions.
I suppose, in the same way that you don't agree that cars' downsides will be as prominent as the article says, I think that they will be.
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Namely, that the space inefficiency of a cars-based solution, would be any actual issue.
This isn't something to just brush off. A bus is 3-5 times as space efficient as the equivalent road space of cars. Period. No amount of automation is going to change that. It's not the driver that makes cars an inefficient use of road space, it's their lay out and seating arrangement. A car can be automated, and yet a bus will still use that road space more efficiently, perhaps even more so if the bus doesn't need a driver.
In tight, urban streets where there is no more room to grow, then it is absolutely something to consider.
Ultimately, AVs will likely improve throughput capacity of a road over standard cars, but for the same reasons, automated buses would do much better.
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Because in e-hail robo-car world, or Uber AV world, whatever you want to call it- the inevitable road congestion is a very minor nuisance for the rider. It just takes time, time where you have to read articles on your phone, or do whatever, while you wait.
This is not something to dismiss so lightly either. It is much more likely that someone will be more willing to use a system that leaves them the most uninterrupted personal and work time on either end of their travels. Being able to do things while you travel is great, but the true productivity comes from when you are already somewhere and are settled in for a long period of work.
Being stuck on the interstate because everyone is in their personal AV instead of using more space-efficient systems is not at all a small thing.
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But so does waiting for the train, or waiting on the next train after the next train, because the rush hour crowds filled up that train while you were still in line.
But the trains scale up FAR better than AVs and cars in general. They just use the space so much more efficiently, and can move so many more people through a corridor than cars can, AV or not, on the same given space.
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Or your delays because you have to wait through 5 train stops where you're not going before you get to the stop where you're going. That adds time to a commute. And road congestion adds time to a commute.
The time it takes for a train to stop at a station, unload and load, then move on is far less time consuming than the congestion and delays that would occur should AVs attempt to move the same number of people though the same given space.
What about the time it takes for an AV to pull off, unload a passenger, maybe pick up another passenger, then rejoin traffic for the other passengers' destinations? That's just as much, if not more time spent on fewer people than a bus or a train during stops.
As always, it simply comes down to space use and geometric efficiency.
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But the latter commute seems more comfortable and preferable to me, at least in 'AV world'.
I'd rather just get home or to work or to where ever I'm going. I don't want to spend more time in an AV, even if it's time I can be on my computer or something.
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Originally Posted by primaltech
I support MARTA heavy rail to Cobb County. I'd support it even in a future robo-car world. I think trains are great. I think mass transit is a great way to move mass amounts of people efficiently and quickly.
But, in robo-car world, it really wouldn't be that necessary. I'd still support it, but it wouldn't be as crucial or as helpful as it would be if the line opened tomorrow.
I can all but guarantee you that the need for high-capacity systems will be so much more needed in the future than they are now, with or without AVs. If for no other reason than we will need to be fitting more people than we can even really comprehend right now into our urban environments for any multitude of reasons. AVs just CAN NOT compete with the space efficiency of larger transit-ways.
I think a passenger train is obviously the most space efficient (and therefore high capacity) thing out there in terms of humans per square inch crammed inside a single vehicle, yes. But, I also think it's actually a trickier equation than that, in practice, for a real comparison. Because if there's one packed train (with let's say a thousand people on it) flying by every 15 minutes (with zero people-moving space efficiency on the empty tracks for the rest of the time)- how does that space efficiency/people-moving capacity on that one lane of rail, compare with a constant non-stop stream of vehicles on an equivalent one lane of right of way, with a fair mix of buses and cars in there, with most of those vehicles at, let's say half vehicle capacity?
I don't know the answer. Maybe the train still wins, unless 50% of the vehicles are buses. Or maybe it would only need to be 25% buses, or even less. I don't know, I'll let you do the math.
Let's say the train wins in pure raw efficiency terms. But, the train is also stuck to rails. It's great for the high density nodes that it serves, but it can't come to my condo. Inevitably, I'm going to have to transfer somewhere, from something to something. Maybe I'd have to transfer multiple times, on my train commute. And transfers take time, and they are not exactly efficient. A direct trip from destination to destination in a car, doesn't suffer from that. And yeah, there are some people who will have both their start point and end point right at train stops, but that's not the way 90% of Atlanta's metro is laid out (or ever will be laid out). So, I'd hope we're not pretending that's the case for most people. Atlanta = low density sprawled out suburbs = not the ideal conditions for trains. We're the anti-Tokyo. Cars are ideal, here. Yes, it's because we designed it that way, and yes, I know you hate that, but that's just the way it is. (And I, for one, do like it.)
It's really just a matter of appropriate thing for appropriate thing. For the most of the sprawled out low-density suburbia around a region like ours, AV cars will work perfectly fine. More than that, they will be the exact right tool for that job, because everyone's going to their individual home, or their individual destination. If things aren't in highly dense nodes, cars are the most efficient transportation system.
Then the next step up, bus. The AV bus system should go along main roads, and lots of buses should go along roads like Peachtree. Let the bus frequency (and the size of the bus itself), scale up with the density level.
Then the highest tier, the train. Let that be the urban core's backbone, serving the airport and downtown and some major business center nodes, and some park&ride stations and such. Everything has its place.
I think it would be appropriate and helpful to bring the train to Cumberland. But I think Cumberland is also only one little area in the massive area of Cobb County. So I think cars (hopefully Uber, AV's, or both) are still the right tool to serve the area, and the train will only make a rather small dent, because most people won't use it, won't be able to use, it won't be their best option. Not the fastest, for most. Because of the car-oriented sprawl layout of typical American suburbs.
Well, in such a world, surely that particular problem would have solutions that would be come up with. Maybe there would be a temporary locked storage place or something, at establishments. Instead of parking lots.
That's still a lot of extra work, especially when I have a car load full of stuff, which I do on aa frequent basis with my job.
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I like any/all of those possibilities. And I also like the idea of semi-AV, like autopilot mode. Something which gets you somewhere approximate to the best total sum of the human driver and the AI driver.
I can get behind cars that are autonomous when it works best, and let the human take over when required. I'd love nothing more than to spend my commutes taking a nap or just chilling out. But at my destinations, I am often in situations where a computer controlled car just isn't going to cut it.
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