Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Monday November 07 2016, @05:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the bring-back-the-trolly,-too dept.

The New York Times has a story about what may be a more likely future of public transportation.

A small electric bus chugged along at a slow but steady seven miles per hour when a white van, entering the street from the side, cut in front of it. The bus slowed, as if its driver had hit the brakes, and got back up to speed after the van moved out of the way.

But this bus has no brake or accelerator pedal. It has no steering wheel, either. In fact, it doesn't have a driver — it operates using sensors and software, although for now, a person is stationed on board ready to hit a red "stop" button in an emergency.

At a time when self-driving cars are beginning to make progress — most notably with a trial program that the ride service Uber began in Pittsburgh this fall — the bus represents a different approach to technologically advanced transportation.

I say a more likely future because of the following:

A driverless car, after all, is still a car, carrying at best a few people. By transporting many passengers on what could be very flexible routes, driverless buses could help reduce the number of cars clogging city streets.

Few advantages accrue from driverless cars if the streets and highways are clogged with them. The passenger(s) can curse the vehicle up ahead instead of its idiot driver. My take: The idea has some promise, especially in places where people do not have long distances to travel.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday November 07 2016, @10:45PM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday November 07 2016, @10:45PM (#423813) Journal

    I agree that buses will likely be part of this, and it's really hard to predict exactly all of the unintended consequences that will follow widespread adoption of driverless cars (which I still think is further off than people think).

    However...

    Few advantages accrue from driverless cars if the streets and highways are clogged with them.

    Agreed. And if they actually increase traffic, as some posts here argue, they may make the problem worse.

    On the other hand, I'd just note that if the traffic volume stayed the same as now, driverless cars would likely have MAJOR effects on freeing up traffic. Why? Because humans tend to drive in very suboptimal ways, particularly in heavy traffic. They accelerate and decelerate rapidly. They maneuver around to fill every possible "gap" as quickly as possible. But this generally isn't the way to maximize throughput. Take your typical "stop-and-go" traffic on a highway at an exchange at rush hour or something. If everyone were driving at 25 mph, while maintaining adequate following distances to allow for lane changes by other cars as necessary, it might be able to flow freely at rush hour and have a reasonable throughput. Not as much as at less busy times, but still constant flow.

    Now, you put in a bunch of human drivers who don't ever leave a gap (because they don't want to allow someone else to "beat them"), accelerate and break rapidly, causing those behind them to do similar things. And when you introduce an interchange or something into that mix, suddenly every car changing lanes is like someone "cutting someone off," thus causing chains of unnecessary breaking and people maneuvering in weird ways just to make sure they "win the race."

    Suddenly, traffic is slowed to a crawl, with mostly stops or 5mph interrupted by periodic bursts of 35 mph then rapid breaking. More wear-and-tear on cars, and now effective average speed is only 10-15 mph instead of the 25mph it might be everyone drove more rationally.

    Traffic simulations and even actual traffic data show that it only takes a relatively small number of cars driving more rationally to begin to break up such a logjam. Even 10-20% of more rational drivers really changes things. Unfortunately, people who drive like that now tend to be honked at, sworn at, etc. unless they're a huge truck or something.

    Another example -- ideal merge behavior. What you really want is a "zipper merge" where each car leaves a gap big enough for the lane to merge in. And you use both lanes up to the merge point, "zipping" at the last moment. That doesn't happen because people merge in sporadically, introducing braking and sometimes even cutting people off when doing so (and other drivers don't want to "let people in," further compounding the odd behavior). Meanwhile, if enough people merge early, what you get is the "cheaters" zooming ahead at high speed in one lane, while everyone's going at a slower pace in the next. When these two collide at the merge point, you're bound to get lots of braking to avoid collisions -- the mismatch in speed is the biggest problem. (Ideally, if you see people speeding up the disappearing lane, the ideal thing would be to get into that lane and travel at the same speed as the lane you're merging too, which will help break up the jam at the merge. But try that in most places in the U.S. and probably someone would shoot you.)

    Paradoxically, even when highways are relatively clear and there is plenty of room to accommodate a lost lane, stop-and-go traffic can still prevail for miles before a merge.

    Bottom line -- self-driving cars could be programmed to do these things that human drivers are too irrational to do. They could thus actually improve traffic significantly and increase throughput in clogged areas, assuming no one vandalized them out of road rage first.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Sarasani on Tuesday November 08 2016, @05:57AM

    by Sarasani (3283) on Tuesday November 08 2016, @05:57AM (#423948)

    Because humans tend to drive in very suboptimal ways, particularly in heavy traffic.

    I remember a peculiar sight on a Dutch highway in morning peak hour with slow moving traffic: a row of cops, lined up along the shoulder, feverishly waving their arms in an effort to encourage road users to drive FASTER. I have never seen police officers do that anywhere else in the world. Don't know if they still do that though (this was a few years ago).