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> Mom, dad, and kid all need to go to work/school at roughly the same time.

That's okay, once automation really gets going, Mom & Dad will be out of work, solving that problem.

That's kinda the point. We all work too much right now as it is. http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/you-really-dont-...

CEO Anne-Marie Slaughter was just in the On-Point podcast saying the same thing (in context to work-life balance and family), that we have a bias for thinking the person who comes in at 6am and leaves at 6pm is a good worker.

This bleeds over into decisions that affects other aspects such as telecommuting, paternity leave, etc.

Bertrand Russell wrote a rather famous [0] essay on it in the 1930's.

0: http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

Russel is one of my favorites and I never knew he wrote this - thanks for sharing.

That sounds funny, but when you put this together with the known increasing costs of supporting suburban infrastructure, it's possible that that whole style of life will be outcompeted and put out of business in most places.

Or it will become a poverty trap.

> If I live in 20 minutes outside the city, then I probably have to wait 20-30 minutes for a ride to arrive before I even start my trip

Not according to studies I've seen, including the one cited in my original comment [1]. They map commute patterns, urban, suburban and rural, and take simultaneity and fleet access into account.

In Ann Arbor, Michigan a "shared fleet [was predicted to] provide almost instantaneous access [fractions of one minute] to a vehicle with a fleet of only 15% of the number of privately owned vehicles that would have been used for these trips." In a rural study conducted in Germany, maximum wait was estimated at 5 minutes with fleet capacity at around 20%.

[1] http://sustainablemobility.ei.columbia.edu/files/2012/12/Tra...

Why not link to the study you are quoting?! Would be useful :)

The simulation you linked has a population density of 25,000 people per sq mile (New York City is 27,000 per sq mi.)

It only accounts for trips internal to the city which already have low wait times with existing taxi cabs, and does not simulate the waits for trips traversing into/out of the city.

The average person's car is somewhere between messy and a pigsty.

Give people an economic incentive for keeping a neat car, then you're going to see neat cars. This is clearly true for the current Uber and Lyft fleets.

Cars could make pit stops to get cleaned while the owners are not using them.

Additionally, Car2Go and other car sharing services exist and they seem to have figured out how to keep things clean enough.

"Current uber and Lyft fleets" -- they made a conscious economic decision. Maybe think about reality of life, a commute, family, etc.

A friend with an incredibly smart 7 year old still has a messy car. Her daughter, despite the ability to read and understand things well above her age, is a 7 year old. The car is a mess.

When it comes to these pie in the sky utopian scenarios, I wish people on HN would step outside and actual observe every day people.

>Her daughter, despite the ability to read and understand things well above her age, is a 7 year old. The car is a mess.

Right, and that's a choice. It has nothing to do with "she's a 7 year old" and everything to do with "she's allowed to make a mess in the car".

I was never allowed to eat in the car beyond the odd sweet, and I wouldn't have thrown wrappers or anything else on the floor on pain of death... I find it mind boggling that the child is blamed for the state of the car, when realistically it is just a parenting choice. There are 7 year olds with exceptional table manners even in this modern day, and there are 7 year olds I'm embarrassed to eat at the same table as.

I'm fine with people choosing to have messy cars (mine oscillates between spotless and a dump over ~3 month periods) - but it's a choice and other choices can be made.

The point being here, there is "it would be nice", "some fit the model where this would work", and "there are a lot of cases where this won't work". Or even more fundamental things when talking about little ones like things like car seats.

Maybe it is "choice", but there are a lot of people out there where the "choice" around their vehicle is closer to that of it is lived in, may have books and papers, clothing, toys, etc. (maybe food as well) that will not conform to this scenario.

Walk through a grocery store parking lot sometime and observe the state of vehicles as people get in/out, etc. my bet is on a sufficiently large pool would be in the condition where utopian sharing doesn't make sense.

That said, if there was a mind shift because of an overall benefit, it could happen. But, that is a long way off.

For rural and light suburban areas I wonder if we'll probably see more of a hybrid shuttle service with at-door pickups, not unlike school buses.

Even without the wage-cost of drivers, individual taxi service may still be too expensive to match the lower demand.

Never lived in the rural area did you?

No one likes buses, because buses are slow. They're slow because they make lots of stops that are irrelevant to your trip. As someone that regularly rode the school bus on a route that took an hour, compared to a 10 minute direct route. Fuck buses.

Yes taxis, exist, but not many. The only people I knew that ever took them were people that lost their licenses.

What you've actually described is a shuttle service. They exist everywhere. They're not popular because they're slow. Last time I took a shared shuttle from the airport it took an additional 45 minutes to get home than driving direct. They have more convenient pick up schedules and locations, but the transit times are almost as bad.

I grew up in a rural area, thank you.

The cycle of poverty is strong in these rural locations because of the lack of public transportation and the cost to maintain a vehicle to hold a job. There are plenty of low-income people moving to common destinations (city center, plants, etc.) that would use an on-demand shared shuttle service if it had at-door pickup.

Having worked a couple summers on a factory line, we would set up carpools and pick people up along the way to work each day. Don't be a dismissive dick just because you personally didn't like your school bus ride.

> cycle of poverty is strong in these rural locations because of the lack of public transportation

Because? Really? Because someone has to buy a car? I think your feelings are in the way of your cognitive ability.

>of low-income people moving to common destinations I'm sure there are plenty of low-income people moving to the suburbs/rural areas because they are being priced out of high density centers.

Lets not forget, 5% of the population uses the bus, that's including major urban centers like NYC. Nationally, nobody uses the bus, its a joke throw back to a time before cars. Fuck buses.

Re: Buses - if you get a chance, come over to Singapore. The buses come by every 3-5 minutes, have world-class air-conditioning, and on the half-dozen or so routes that I ride regularly, I don't think I've ever had to stand.

I rarely bother to even use their (world class) MRT I love the buses so much.

An advanced city is not a place where the poor move about in cars, rather it’s where even the rich use public transportation

Singapore is ~1/4 of the size of Rhode Island and ~200 square miles larger than lichtenstein, the smallest country in Europe. It's like 50k USD to own the ability to own a car which expires in 10 years at which point you will have to scrap it or rebuy this cert. A passat is somewhere north of 150k.

Also, I would add that subways are probably a better way forward than busses for a modern city, or at least some sort of connected underground transport system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_in_Singapore

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-06-04/singapore-...

https://www.google.com/search?q=singapore+size

https://www.google.com/search?q=rhode+island+size

https://www.google.com/search?q=size+of+the+vatican

I agree - that there are a number of factors that benefit it's bus system over cars - the reasonable size of the country, and the enlightened attitude towards car owners paying for their externiality costs (the Certificate of Entitlement, or COE).

I also agree that Subways are awesome - and Singapore has an awesome system for such a young country, and they are going to be adding a new one each year through 2024 - That's a new line, not just a new station. [1]

The nice thing about bus stops - is they are everywhere, and the buses come by very frequently, and they all have GPS locators on them - so you can time your arrival to the stop to be when the bus arrives (which you can look up on your smart phone). I've never been a fan of buses before Singapore - but it's great to see what can be done in a country where cars are not the default option.

[1] http://www.lta.gov.sg/apps/news/page.aspx?c=2&id=80d3169f-dc...

Maintain a car, not just buy. For a family below the poverty line & living paycheck to paycheck, this is costly.

55% of commuters in New York city use public transportation, 34% in SF, 26% in Chicago, 40% in D.C., etc. Don't be a dick about cognitive ability when you're quoting a 5% number that includes people who don't even have access to buses.

Those are generally larger buses that are completely fixed in their route and stops, right?

Smaller buses able to optimise routes to make fewer stops will help. Split the current big bus into 3-4 smaller ones and the people going close to the full distance might not stop for the first 80% of stops. That would cut out a lot of time.

Obviously rural areas will be the last to see these changes for non-commercial traffic.

If the city isn't designed for shared transit, even a small trip is going to be awful. SuperShuttle, which picks up 4-5 groups at a time from airports and doesn't use a fixed route, can still add hours to your trip home in LA.

On the other hand, I've used airport busses between transit hubs in cities where everyone takes the subway and it was really quite nice. Better if I ever figure out luggage delivery, of course.

    > 1. Mom, dad, and kid all need to go to work/school at roughly the same time.

This is flexible for most families as school drop off usually happens before a parent (or both) go to work.

Start times (school and work) are just arbitrary numbers. We changed our school start time to help with parents dropping off kids to multiple schools (primary and secondary schools) and then on to work (9:30 start is unusual but fine)

Of course the world or the way that you use cars would be different too...

#1, work/school from home, optimized schedules, etc

#2, you could get in/off the "car" in your own little capsule...

#3, those fleets of cars would park at the most efficient spots possible by using big data so the wait times could be reduced significantly (or the wait could be eliminated completely if the schedule is known ahead).

1. Ok, maybe 2 cars if the locations are in completely disparate locations, but carpooling is possible.

2. User feedback could be a useful deterrent against messing up someone else's SDC, in the same way that both drivers and passengers can leave feedback with Uber today.

3. True, but one can adapt to this.

Or maybe i'm just hopelessly optimistic... :)

I don't own a car and instead use a ZipCar-like along public transit and cycling.

My conclusion is that car sharing services are quite expensive. I can do no more than 3 or 4 short rentals a month before the cost start to resemble that of owning a used car. I do save money, but only because I drive a tiny fraction of what I drove when I did own a car.

Of course, car sharing is not as efficient as SDCs that can move around and maximize usage, but even SDCs would mostly end up parked at night and off-peak hours. Coupled with your point #4, I'm afraid it won't be long before driving the current average yearly mileage using those services become massively, prohibitively expensive.

I'm not sure how that would be a gain for anyone but the environment.

People already have the option to carpool, and rarely choose to take it. I don't really see that changing due to SDCs...

I don't carpool* because I hate having to be ready by an exact time each day, can't be done earlier and certainly not later.

If I was using an on-call car service that I could ping 10 minutes before I'm ready to go each day, I can do that without triggering my concerns.

*Note however: I currently commute by bus since I moved to Seattle, and I make up for hating being ready by an exact time by instead choosing a bus route that has a bus every 15 minutes.

2 seems solvable with reputation? If you trash someone's car you're banned from the service. Also your charged for doing it. They can stick cameras in the car to verify same as taxis have cameras.