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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: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @04:24AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13 2019, @04:24AM (#813583)

    Up to half [govtech.com] of cars in urban centers are already driving around looking for parking.

    Cars with human drivers have to park near where they're going. Self-driving cars don't. They can leave the city center, go to a remote parking lot or just go home. We actually already do this, but only when circumstances make it favorable. At the airport, for example, where everyone goes to the same place and parking tends to be long-term, it's common to park in an off-site lot and take a shuttle bus the rest of the way. It's like that, except without the shuttle. And there are also park-and-rides or whatever transit lots are called near you, where you can park for free in the suburbs and take public transit into the city.

    Sure, it would mean more total miles if cars drive home instead of parking - but not more congestion. The road going out of the city is clear in the morning, the road coming in is clear in the evening. Most of the new traffic would be on the clear roads, not the congested ones. Combine that with the reduction in the need for parking, repurposing of on-street parking, elimination of cars looking for parking, and self driving cars will reduce congestion, not increase it. The only aspect of self-driving cars that potentially leads to more congestion is that they might encourage people to drive rather than take public transit.

    The whole "ownership vs. sharing" aspect is completely orthogonal. Self-driving cars make sharing a little cheaper because you don't need to pay the driver. That is definitely not going to stop anyone who wants a car from having one, and certainly not have much of an impact on traffic congestion.

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