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Driverless cars could INCREASE dependence on four wheels, study finds

People could start to view their cars as places to work, rest and play, and abandon public transport

Driverless cars could increase congestion on the roads as people find it more convenient to be chauffeured around, a new study has found.

Although self-driving cars are hoped to become safer and more efficient than those driven by humans, these benefits could become outweighed by over-use, according to research at the University of Washington and the University of Leeds.

Published in the Transportation Research journal, the study says that people’s relationships with their cars may change as they find more time to relax or work in them.

“There is a lot of hype around self-driving cars, much of it somewhat utopian in nature. But there are likely to be positives and negatives,” co-author Don MacKenzie, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Washington told his university website.

http://www.washington.edu/news/2016/02/25/driverless-cars-could-increase...

“By taking a clear-eyed view, we can design and implement policies to maximize the benefits and minimize the downsides of automated vehicles.”

The study estimates a 5 to 60 percent increase in car energy consumption, with people choosing the laid-back form of travel over planes or buses.

“When you make a decision about transport, you don’t just think about the out-of-pocket costs of the train ticket or the car’s petrol; you also take into account non-financial costs,” said lead author Zia Wadud, associate professor in the University of Leeds’ Faculty of Engineering.

“Car owners might choose to travel by train to relatively distant business meetings because the train allows them to work and relax. The need to drive is part of the cost of choosing the car, just as standing on a cold platform is part of the cost of the train. If you can relax in your car as it safely drives itself to a meeting in another city, that changes the whole equation,” Wadud said.

He added that current non-drivers, including the elderly or disabled, will also find it easier to use the automated cars, which could add up to a 2-10 per cent increased in road use.

Higher speeds and heavy technology in driverless cars, including televisions and computers, could also reduce the efficiency savings expected in intelligent robotic cars.

But the authors also note that if car-sharing takes off, it could well bring down some of this heavy toll.

“Vehicle automation presents a paradox: it may encourage people to travel much more, but at the same time it makes it practical to implement tools such as road pricing that can offset those effects,” Don MacKenzie said. “Ultimately, however, it’s up to government to set appropriate policies to manage these impacts.”

From July, seven driverless cars are to be tested around the Greenwich Peninsula, where the O2 Arena is based. They will be tested on pavements with a steward present at all times in case of any problems.

In truth, it doesn’t seem entirely appropriate to call them cars and the vehicles are in fact more commonly referred to as ‘driverless pods’. They will be adapted versions of the Ultra PODs that are currently in service at Heathrow – electric four-wheelers which carry passengers between the car park and Terminal 5.

The trial is part of the £8m GATEway project which last year tested an entirely different driverless pod on a cycle path in the same area. This time around the test will last for three months. Trips will involve only invited users at first and subsequently the general public. Each pod has space for five passengers plus the steward who will be there to press the emergency button should the need arise.

Professor Nick Reed, technical director for the Gateway project, told the BBC (link is external): "It will tell us whether people trust and accept these vehicles and how they would work as part of the urban landscape. This vehicle has millions of miles under its belt and now we have to take it outside of the track and modify it for use on pavements."

 

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10 comments

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kie7077 | 8 years ago
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Regardless of whether new cars are autonomous, if they're not electric or near-zero emission then they should be taxed enough to make them far more expensive than zero emission vehicles both at point of sale and during use.

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Username | 8 years ago
1 like

I'm quite pessimistic about autonomous cars unless we radically rethink how our road-space is allocated.

 

I've long been of the opionion that automomous vehicles will increase car usuage. A typical example: I've just collected my daughter from a party. I had a choice of car, motorbike, motor scooter (she has a helmet and CE armour gear), bike, bus, Tube, or a very long walk. To get the car out of the garage and find parking at the other end seemed like too much faff, to put on motorbike gear and carry hers with me definitely was too much faff, the bus would take twice as long, the Tube likewise and cost more, walking would have been too far and she would have whinged all the way back - so Bobike seat on my workhorse bike won the day. We were home in minutes.

 

If we owned, or had access to a shared, autonomous vehicle I probably would have happily sent it to fetch her.

 

Car usuage isn't constrained by costs, the Congestion Charge proved this point, it is constrained by how much inconvenience (jams, parking) drivers are willing to tolerate. Remove that inconvenience, and let a robot suffer instead, and you'll see car usage exploding.

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cyclisto | 8 years ago
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Its all about pricing. Car use is very cheap compared to other consumer goods and services, if we take into consideration all the problems it creates in its current form.

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brooksby replied to cyclisto | 8 years ago
2 likes

cyclisto wrote:

Its all about pricing. Car use is very cheap compared to other consumer goods and services, if we take into consideration all the problems it creates in its current form.

Isn't it more that car travel *seems* cheap because so many of the costs associated therewith are passed out to the wider community rather than asking the driver to pay for it?

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cyclisto replied to brooksby | 8 years ago
2 likes

brooksby wrote:

cyclisto wrote:

Its all about pricing. Car use is very cheap compared to other consumer goods and services, if we take into consideration all the problems it creates in its current form.

Isn't it more that car travel *seems* cheap because so many of the costs associated therewith are passed out to the wider community rather than asking the driver to pay for it?

 

Exactly that. Everybody has to face the pollution from the car emmisions, the increased car infrastructure costs and the land that it claims not to mention that in budget deficit economies any extra money that some citizens decide to pay, eventually the whole country will have to get loan so that the government can pay directly or indirectly the salaries that people claim. Also when people exercise like  when they walk or cycle, healthcare costs are dramatically reduced...

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paul-ldn | 8 years ago
1 like

Maybe so CXR94Di2 but don't forget the worryign rise of Type 2 Diabetes in cities due to lack of exercise and poor diets, my guess is that driverless cars will lead to more congestion and inactivity. 

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brooksby replied to paul-ldn | 8 years ago
0 likes

paul-ldn wrote:

Maybe so CXR94Di2 but don't forget the worryign rise of Type 2 Diabetes in cities due to lack of exercise and poor diets, my guess is that driverless cars will lead to more congestion and inactivity. 

Wall-E

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CXR94Di2 | 8 years ago
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It is the next revolution in passenger transport. Benefits safer for pedestrians and cyclist s. Less congestion, pollution and stressed workers

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kie7077 replied to CXR94Di2 | 8 years ago
2 likes

CXR94Di2 wrote:

It is the next revolution in passenger transport. Benefits safer for pedestrians and cyclist s. Less congestion, pollution and stressed workers

No, there will be more congestion, a lot more. You won't need a license to drive because you won't be driving, anybody will be able to use them, young, old, disabled, drunk etc. And for every X number of cars on the road that have an occupant their will also be an empty car. There's no way that there will be less vehicles on the road. And if you look at central London for an example of how things can be then 'car trains' won't solve anything, London already has car trains, they just move very slowly, they're called traffic jams.

And if you think car trains are a good idea, look at the size of a pile-up on the motorway, for a pile-up including a car-train, increase the number of vehicles involved 20-fold.

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brooksby replied to kie7077 | 8 years ago
1 like

kie7077 wrote:

No, there will be more congestion, a lot more. You won't need a license to drive because you won't be driving, anybody will be able to use them, young, old, disabled, drunk etc. And for every X number of cars on the road that have an occupant their will also be an empty car. There's no way that there will be less vehicles on the road. And if you look at central London for an example of how things can be then 'car trains' won't solve anything, London already has car trains, they just move very slowly, they're called traffic jams.

Exactly: electric cars are still cars; autonomous drone cars are still cars. And all the congestion is due to there being too many cars.

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