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Comment by kuschku | Hacker News Reader

Self-driving cars can’t disrupt urban transport systems, because they don’t solve the issue.

The issue is that everyone wants their own, big, car, and everyone wants to use them at the same time.

During the morning commute you have over a hundred times more cars on the road than in the late evening, at 10pm, for example.

The only solution that allows the streets not to be completely overwhelmed by cars is to put the cars underground, or on elevated roads, or use more efficient systems.

40 cars vs. one bus. Self-Driving cars don’t help in urban environments at all.

Many cities already suggest to just use P+R instead of using cars downtown.

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Firstly, you assert that everyone wants their own big car. This is not true. I don't want one, and I'm not alone in that amongst people living in cities with good public transport.

I choose my mode of travel (including cars) as a function of the time it's going to take to get there, and how much stuff I'm lugging. If I am carrying a lot or travelling out of peak hour, I take a car. If I'm under time pressure, I'll probably take the metro.

In Paris we have Autolib, which is a wonderful car service where you can reserve a car at one station and drop it off at another. There are over a thousand if these stations in the city, so there's normally one near you and your destination. But the brilliance of this is that I can go to work using public transport (because peak hour), gi to the gym after work and then drive home. Or catch public transport to a restaurant in a Saturday evening, and drive home, or whatever. Self driving cars will make this type of system even better because I can use one without having a station near me, I just call a car.

At the moment city centres get clogged by cars because public transport in the suburbs is horrible. But if you can get a car to a transport hub and then commute into the centre, I think a lot of people would prefer that to being stuck in heavy traffic for hours. Maybe not you, but many people.

I personally would prefer it, too – I actually don’t own a car, and live in a european city (Kiel, Germany) ;)

I’m trying to look at it from the american perspective, because I’ve long given up the hope that any non-american perspective is even considered relevant on here.

Actually, self-driving cars, while nice, won’t really improve your abilities inside the city – you’ll still use bus, metro, etc.

The "transport hub at edge of the city" is already a common concept over here, called "Park+Ride", with parking spots usually at places which have bus stations and train stations or metro stops.

>At the moment city centres get clogged by cars because public transport in the suburbs is horrible. But if you can get a car to a transport hub and then commute into the centre, I think a lot of people would prefer that to being stuck in heavy traffic for hours. Maybe not you, but many people.

That is actually the "first mile, last mile" concept the author of the article puts on the table as being an interesting problem to solve and considers autonomous cars to be, maybe, part of the solution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_mile_%28transportation%29

They might help build more urban areas. Low cost per mile rides can shift a bunch of people that are currently making car first choices over to making car second choices.

This is what happens in much of the US, it is utterly impractical to not have a car, so people make their choices in the context of having a car. Make the car less important and there is at least a chance they will make different decisions.

Driverless cars will create less unnecessary queues due to faster reaction times, but yeah, that won't help all that much.

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