Autonomous cars: Atlanta's transportation future? (Decatur, McDonough: purchases, casino, ferry)

[primaltech]

Originally Posted by brown_dog_us

People want door to door service.

Heck yeah I do.

I want a ride hail to pick me up right at my door and take me directly all the way to my destination.

Or, if I'm going to something in the main part of the city, or to the airport or something, a nice train station in my Cumberland/Vinings area, with a lot of parking where I can park and ride. Where it's one transfer, car to train.

Both of those are so much better than, walking a half mile uphill in the heat just to get to the nearest bus stop on Cumberland Pkwy, waiting for the bus there, then riding that bus to the transfer station, then getting off and waiting for another bus there, then that bus takes me to a train station somewhere.

I am a fan of transit, but it needs to be done right, and it's not always appropriate for the suburbs. Especially for the last mile connection.

Sometimes I'll take a $15 Lyft ride down to Arts Center MARTA. If there was a station closer on the main trunk line, that would be awesome as I could do a $6 Lyft ride instead. Or could drive to it and park.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by primaltech

Sometimes I'll take a $15 Lyft ride down to Arts Center MARTA. If there was a station closer on the main trunk line, that would be awesome as I could do a $6 Lyft ride instead.

I think that is more the way autonomous vehicles / ride sharing is going to evolve. I think Uber / Lyft themselves will start to operate high capacity trunk routes.

[brown_dog_us]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Door-to-door service in a single vehicle cannot handle the transportation needs / capacity of a large city.

You might want to shower in bottled Fiji water everyday but it is not an affordable / practical option to supply the water needs of an entire household. So instead of bigger water bottles we should use those resources towards improving the plumbing system since it can handle that capacity.

and the overwhelming majority of commuters pick to drive a SOV everyday. Forcing them to the bus stop ain't working.

[AtlJan]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Door-to-door service in a single vehicle cannot handle the transportation needs / capacity of a large city.

Then maybe the city is too big. An Atlanta made up of a region of smaller cities/hubs where people can live and work and build community on a smaller scale. Obviously, it's already happening. There is no need for everyone to filter into the intown area and filter back out again. Of course that's going to create transportation difficulties.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by brown_dog_us

and the overwhelming majority of commuters pick to drive a SOV everyday. Forcing them to the bus stop ain't working.

Forcing ten gallons of water in a liter bottle ain't working.

And a bigger bottle isn't the solution.

There is what you prefer and their is what we can supply to a large and growing city.

As much as you may want for every one to be able to drive between every destination in the city in their own it is simply not a workable option.

If people have to pay the full costs of driving and have other reasonable options, they will often choose the other option.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by jsvh

I think that is more the way autonomous vehicles / ride sharing is going to evolve. I think Uber / Lyft themselves will start to operate high capacity trunk routes.

I wonder what percent of ride-sharing trips are for more than one passenger?

I know that when people go out at night and want to do some drinking, they may share an Uber car.

However, in the daytime I always wind up being the sole passenger, even though I usually specify Uber pool. The drivers tell me there weren't any other passengers on the way so they just came straight to pick me up.

On single passenger trips -- whether the car is automated or not -- I'm not sure they're reducing traffic very much.

[primaltech]

What we really need to do, is have these everywhere. On all the freeways, and also main roads of at least 3 lanes per side:



HOV-3's.

Run the BRT's and express commuter buses in them and everything, plus encourage higher occupancy. And more Uber/Lyft pools instead of 1 passenger.

That would really be the best way to fix traffic, even better than the HOT's/managed lanes.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by primaltech

We need to get rid of drivers, emissions, and the culture of everyone owning a car and driving and parking everywhere.

This is likely never going to happen. Just think of the logistics for lots of people. How do you deal with kids? Do you have special Uber/Lyft cars with car seats? I transport my lighting control equipment around several times a month. It's large and heavy, and I go to odd locations...do I always need to pre-arrange a vehicle capable of handling the load and dropping me off at a specific door of a building? How do workers who carry parts (plumbers, painters, electricians, DJs, photographers, etc) get their tools and parts to and from job sites? People who go play sports or work out after work now carry all their stuff with them everywhere? The people who think that everyone moving to a pod-type shared system is a legitimate reality are those whose lives seem very generic: get up, go to work, eat, sleep...get up, go to work, eat, sleep.

Will it work for some people? Absolutely. Can everyone do that? Not a chance.

[primaltech]

Um, that's what I said. We need to get rid of the culture of EVERYONE owning a car and driving and parking everywhere, which is the status quo for transportation in the metro Atlanta area. Virtually everyone owns cars and drives themselves and parks everywhere.

We should be able to get that down to somewhere closer to half of the population.

And even in the situations you're talking about, where owning a private vehicle makes sense- that can still be an autonomous vehicle, or at least semi-autonomous.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by primaltech

Um, that's what I said. We need to get rid of the culture of EVERYONE owning a car and driving and parking everywhere, which is the status quo for transportation in the metro Atlanta area. Virtually everyone owns cars and drives themselves and parks everywhere.

We should be able to get that down to somewhere closer to half of the population.

And even in the situations you're talking about, where owning a private vehicle makes sense- that can still be an autonomous vehicle, or at least semi-autonomous.

Semi...or autonomous-at-will. The whole fully-autonomous-at-all-times-with-no-human-interaction-ever thing is for the birds.