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)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday March 12 2019, @01:32PM
Easy fix!
We already have carjackers. The upper crust of the carjacking society will start stealing these unattended vehicles wandering the streets. We also already have vandalism. I can think of a lot of ways to vandalize an unattended car, creatively. And, if I'm not feeling terribly creative, I can always just blow it up. It's just full of batteries, which are fairly stable, unless and until they are destructively shorted out. So, some thug destroys the car, and the wrecker comes, gets it off the street, and the owner has to pay for the towing, plus a ticket for obstructing the roadway. I foresee great fun for some young men. The whole neighborhood may want to get together for a day out, destroying nuisance vehicles running through the 'hood.