Autonomous cars: Atlanta's transportation future? (Dunwoody: camping, light rail, trailer)

[brown_dog_us]

Originally Posted by JPD

I have to agree. This test is not impressive. A straight line, on a computerized street, nothing resembling real world driving conditions. And even considering how low the bar was set, human intervention was required.

Waymo (formerly google) has logged over 3 million miles of real world driving.

[JPD]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Yes, a very good beginning.

Aren't we long past the beginning at this point?

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by JPD

Aren't we long past the beginning at this point?

North Avenue is the only street I know that is set up for it at this point. There may be others.

[jsvh]

Waymo is first to put fully self-driving cars on US roads without a safety driver

Waymo, the autonomous vehicle division of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, reached an important milestone recently: since mid-October, the company has been operating its autonomous minivans on public roads in Arizona without a safety driver — or any human at all — behind the wheel. And starting very soon, the company plans to invite regular people for rides in these fully self-driving vehicles.

The news that Waymo’s vehicles have been on public roads with no human in the driver’s seat was announced today by the company’s CEO John Krafcik at a tech conference in Lisbon. The announcement comes on the heels of Waymo’s decision to invite a group of reporters to visit Castle, a 91-acre facility in California’s Central Valley that it has been using as a training course for its self-driving vehicles. At the time, Krafcik declined to provide an exact timetable as to when it would begin testing fully self-driving vehicles on public roads. Little did we know at the time, they were already doing it...

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Waymo is first to put fully self-driving cars on US roads without a safety driver

Stopped in the crosswalk!

[jsvh]

Bob Lutz: Kiss the good times goodbye | AutoNews

'Everyone will have 5 years to get their car off the road or sell it for scrap' - Bob Lutz (Former exec at GM, BMW, Ford)

[primaltech]

Now we are approaching the end of the line for the automobile because travel will be in standardized modules.

The end state will be the fully autonomous module with no capability for the driver to exercise command. You will call for it, it will arrive at your location, you'll get in, input your destination and go to the freeway.

On the freeway, it will merge seamlessly into a stream of other modules traveling at 120, 150 mph. The speed doesn't matter. You have a blending of rail-type with individual transportation.

Then, as you approach your exit, your module will enter deceleration lanes, exit and go to your final destination. You will be billed for the transportation. You will enter your credit card number or your thumbprint or whatever it will be then. The module will take off and go to its collection point, ready for the next person to call.

Most of these standardized modules will be purchased and owned by the Ubers and Lyfts and God knows what other companies that will enter the transportation business in the future.

A minority of individuals may elect to have personalized modules sitting at home so they can leave their vacation stuff and the kids' soccer gear in them. They'll still want that convenience.

The vehicles, however, will no longer be driven by humans because in 15 to 20 years — at the latest — human-driven vehicles will be legislated off the highways.

And Atlanta will be saved. Metropolitan areas like Atlanta and Los Angeles especially, that designed around the automobile and then bad traffic happened, will be saved by this future. Our quality of life, mobility issues, parking requirements, bad drivers, safety, urban density and human-scale streets, all of it could really be fixed by embracing this technology. Especially if transit is a part of it as well. Automated bus routes mixed in with all the automated cars. (Plus we also still have traditional rail transit.)

If every day I can just hit a button and a small pod comes and picks me up wherever I'm at, and drops me off literally wherever I want to go in the whole metro, then any congestion delay experienced along the way is no big deal, because I can be multitasking or relaxing or doing anything I want while riding in the pod (car).

Basically it would turn our vast connected roadway system into one big transit system. Personal Rapid Transit pods, mixed with mass transit vehicles, and everything in the middle, such as pools of 4 people or 6 people or whatever. And freight and trucks are automated as well. And parking is no longer a concern at all. Everybody just gets dropped off everywhere, like transit. With some exceptions, like families or some people who might want to own their own car and customize it and such.

Just imagine how this world could transform the face of Atlanta as we know it. There could be maybe 90% fewer parking inside the city limits. With all that space re-purposed into human space, and productive buildings. You could walk around so much easier, and just plain get around so much easier. You don't even own a car. Let's say you live in Virginia Highland and want to go to some place you like on Howell Mill- just hit a button, it picks you up, goes there, drops you off, bills your credit card (for cheaper fare than what Uber/Lyft currently cost). Or you want to go to the airport, so you hail a ride to a MARTA station a couple miles away, for free, or for really cheap.

[jsvh]

Yep. It will be a great thing for Atlanta.

[arjay57]

I have to wonder how this autonomous vehicle thing will work out. I had errands and appointments all over town today and was on surface streets and freeways several times. Traffic was never really that bad. Sure, it slowed down a bit during rush on the superslab but, hey, it's rush hour. Everybody kept moving along at a decent clip.

There's no way in the world I could have handled that kind of agenda without a personal vehicle. I found the experience not only convenient but quite pleasant and not at all stressful. There was even a little time left for exploring, which is one of my favorite things.

[krogerDisco]

Originally Posted by primaltech

AJust imagine how this world could transform the face of Atlanta as we know it. There could be maybe 90% fewer parking inside the city limits. With all that space re-purposed into human space, and productive buildings. You could walk around so much easier, and just plain get around so much easier. You don't even own a car. Let's say you live in Virginia Highland and want to go to some place you like on Howell Mill- just hit a button, it picks you up, goes there, drops you off, bills your credit card (for cheaper fare than what Uber/Lyft currently cost). Or you want to go to the airport, so you hail a ride to a MARTA station a couple miles away, for free, or for really cheap.

I'd rather it take me directly to the airport rather than having to cope with the transfer. There could be a drop off spot just for this purpose. The "pod" detects you've removed your luggage and it departs. This revolution might greatly impact MARTA as Uber and Lyft have impacted taxis.