As reported by City Lab‘s Laura Bliss, our utopian view of driverless “Uber” and “Lyft” vehicles might be very different as “zero occupancy vehicles” jockey to pick up drivers and do short errands. That’s why the philosophy has been to share driverless cars, different from Elon Musk who wants one of his cars in every citizen’s driveway.
There is a fear that the driverless technology will be so pervasively cheap and convenient that it will attract riders who normally would not be driving and result in an increase of vehicle kilometers travelled. “Even in a shared scenario, there could be a vehicle kilometers travelled increase due to increased demand,” says Adam Cohen, a research associate at UC Berkeley’s Transportation Sustainability Research Center, who presented his research on planning for shared mobility this week at the American Planning Association’s annual conference in New York.”
Cities and policies can be tweaked now to be “proactive in planning for Autonomous vehicles rather than reactive in the future, advice that is becoming dogma among “smart city” practitioners and advocates“. Cities such as Paris, Oslo and Stockholm are banning cars from urban cores, countering the carpool convenience that autonomous vehicles might represent. Priority travel lanes for high-occupancy autonomous vehicles like buses and road pricing policies which charge by vehicle kilometer in traffic dense areas will be needed to reduce vehicle kilometers travelled.
As Bruce Schaller, a former senior official with the New York City Department of Transportation and an expert in emerging ride services noted “Public officials don’t know what policies are needed for technology that doesn’t yet exist. The private sector, from Uber to Detroit to Google, are rushing headlong toward an intensive competition to get out ahead”.
And a late breaking news item-Uber and Google’s Waymo have agreed to co-operate in getting their technology out. More here.
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Reblogged this on Sandy James Planner.
“Cities such as Paris, Oslo and Stockholm are banning cars from urban cores, countering the carpool convenience that autonomous vehicles might represent”
Any politician who thinks making like less convenient for their citizens might want to rethink their career. And given that these vehicle will likely be electrically powered in 10 years, it is an even more backward way of thinking.
They’re making life better for their citizens. Dependence on cars doesn’t make life better or more convenient. It is a wise career move.
Let’s not confuse what works for downtown Vancouver with what works for Surrey, Coquitlam or Fraser Valley !
The “public transit is nirvana” ie “cars are bad” mantra needs to be more nuanced, too !
A mix of publicly owner, shared or individually owned vehicles is the answer. The mix, availability and pricing thereof is relevant.
Let’s not pretend that what works in and around downtown Vancouver can’t work elsewhere. Pockets of the suburbs are urbanizing quickly and they will create environments where cars are just another a choice – a very expensive choice. Those who choose to live in sprawl will pay a higher and higher price for the lack of choice. (Thomas, you even support tax policies that work toward that.)
The “cars are the only option” mantra was never nuanced. What is taking place in current transportation debate is very nuanced by comparison. The provincial election made very clear that inhibiting transit expansion in favour of mega-bridges is no longer a slam-dunk, even in the suburbs.
Not quite. Suburbians want houses AND they want FREE roads not tolls. Thus they voted NDP in large numbers. Most do not blog here though. http://www.vancouversun.com/south+asians+helped+hand+eight+ridings/13371363/story.html
Small condos and buses are not what most people want especially immigrants that come here for a better live !
I take the view that per capita measurements will become increasingly important as we travel further into the century. Per capita energy consumption, per capita infrastructure expenditures and so on have deep common denominator, level playing field attributes.
Further, too many pundits emphasis the private and downplay the public in these autonomous vehicle articles. The fact remains that these nearly unanimous private vehicles will never get anywhere beyond the driveway without an astronomically vast and expensive public road system, and their per capita measures will always strain against their carrying capacity with respect to the laws of physics.
Walkable and transit-oriented communities win every time with respect to the above measuring sticks.
Only for those that think common good. Those that come here want a house and a car, the dream. http://www.vancouversun.com/south+asians+helped+hand+eight+ridings/13371363/story.html
Here is an interesting article that predicts both the collapse of oil and auto manufacturing by 2030 as a result of driverless ride share:
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/topstories/oil-prices-4-years-from-collapse-amid-historic-shift-in-transport-report/ar-BBBdd8K?li=AAggFp5&ocid=iehp
Many self serving predictions exist. Cars last twenty or more years. Unlike a $300 cellphone they don’t get replaced that fast. We don’t even have Uber in most cities. And we expect AVs and EVs to be ubiquitous in a decade or by 2030 ? Maybe for the few rich Stanford profs living within 20 miles of Campus in Southern California. Even if EVs are 30% of new cars by 2030 ( likely far far less actually ) that means 70% still use oil in some form, and cars bought today will be on the road to 2040 or longer, and 99%+ of them are not EVs. AVs will take even longer to materialize due to road, human and legal complexities. Peak natural oil use. by 2040. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-outlook-iea-idUSKBN13B0OP
deleted as per editorial policy. Please read policy.
How many twenty year old cars do you see out there? Thomas, I advise you to stop looking backwards for solutions. It inhibits you from seeing the wonders (and pitfalls) of exponential growth. It is humanity’s biggest problem but it also offers short to medium term solutions.
If car-less households and EVs increase exponentially, as some signs are showing, the status quo can be upended very quickly. It’s happened before. The 2008 housing melt-down proved that the “experts” don’t tell us everything. Either because they don’t actually know or because they benefit from getting suckers to invest in a collapsing market as they sell off.
I see quite a few. I am very forward looking. I just don’t believe all the hype. An evolutionary change. Nothing revolutionary here. EVs have been invented 100+ years ago and even golf courses have used them for decades, although many with steeper terrain and two heavy golfers on them can’t handle 18 holes. AVs and EVs will come gradually, as will transit to the burbs or Uber-like options. The decline of oil use is overrated as few viable alternatives exist in a world with 8B+ people that have to eat and move about. Take a drive to green V Island where the Greens got 20%+ in many ridings. How many e-cars do you see there ? 1% ? 2? 5 even ? Why not 20 or 40%?
I just don’t believe all the hype.
Then why do you put your faith in so much self-serving hype on so many topics? Oil, public sector vs private sector economies, cars, roads vs transit, land use, clean energy, debt …… We’ve read your comments until they became overly repetitive and checked your sources and found the majority wanting. Once in a while you may read half (if that) of a peer-reviewed report from an independent source, but that’s pretty rare.
EVs, autonomous vehicles, Uber, Lyft — cars, cars and more cars — all without exception require a massive public expenditure on massive infrastructure that cannot be sustained forever.