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posted by takyon on Tuesday March 12 2019, @10:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the unparktilect:-the-wheelbound dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Stingy driverless cars will clog future streets instead of parking

It's a nightmarish vision of San Francisco's future, like something out of science fiction: streets full of driverless cars, crawling along implacably but at a snail's pace, snarling traffic and bringing the city to a standstill from the iconic Ferry Building to Union Square.

But according to Adam Millard-Ball, associate professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, this scenario could come to pass simply as a result of rational behavior on the part of autonomous vehicle owners. Congestion pricing that imposes a fee or tax for driving in the downtown core could help prevent this future, but cities need to act fast, before self-driving cars are common, he argues.

Those conclusions emerge from an analysis published in the journal Transport Policy, in which Millard-Ball used game theory and a computer model of San Francisco traffic patterns to explore the effects of autonomous vehicles on parking. He found that the gridlock happens because self-driving cars don't need to park near a rider's destination – in fact, they don't need to park at all.

The autonomous vehicle parking problem (DOI: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2019.01.003) (DX)


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  • (Score: 2) by Farkus888 on Tuesday March 12 2019, @12:09PM

    by Farkus888 (5159) on Tuesday March 12 2019, @12:09PM (#813197)

    Because car as a service self driving cars will spend far less of their time parked, they will be off to the next customer. That means parking will be easier to find and cheaper, less demand, lowering the need to avoid it. Some street side parking could be repurposed as drive lanes making more room for the driving cars. Where I live downtown is a 10 minute drive away often with 5 minutes driving in circles looking for parking so this changes little in drive time. Other tech will change, vehicle to vehicle communications make denser parking and driving easier.

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