[rtsao]

I recall many years ago Jonathan Hall (economist at Uber) describing a "traffic apocalypse" caused by empty self-driving cars flooding city streets. I think the notion was the operational cost of self-driving cars was so low that wasteful (empty car) usage would skyrocket without anyone directly paying the cost of time/road use. Today, the mean number of people per car on the road is at least 1, but with empty AVs that could plummet to <1.

I believe this scenario was discussed as an argument for congestion pricing, serving as a vital solution to the tragedy of the commons exacerbated by self-driving cars.

[prawn]

I've never forgotten a Hacker News comment about the same idea - might have predated Uber even. If parking costs increase, and self-driving cars can recharge cheaply, then we'll see them slowly navigating streets en masse while waiting for their next gigs. Like a molasses taxi rank oozing around with no urgency.

[kiliantics]

As someone who mostly cycles to get around the city, I would love this situation. I could get around everywhere so quickly between all the car-tar without the fear of being killed by a careless human driver. But if this thought experiment teaches anything, it's that we should give public pathways over to non-car users way before we ever get to this stage. We've already gone way too far out of our way for cars. Make most roads bike/train/tram only and save one or two lanes max for delivery trucks and maybe buses.

[lotsoweiners]

Not gonna happen...next idea?

[medellin]

I already had this experience where i had to wait 30 minutes for someone to come pickup a car. Driving it around was cheaper than parking it for 30 minutes

[Firmwarrior]

haha, I experienced this myself. My friend fell on some hard times, and it was actually a net financial gain for me to have him sleep on my couch and pay for his food, since he'd drive me to/pick me up from work in downtown Seattle and save me $30/day on parking (or 60+ minutes a day in crappy bus commuting)

[tomcam]

I’m going to call my 60s cover band Molasses Taxi Rank

[prawn]

Liner notes credit please. (Are there still liner notes?)

[thedrbrian]

The best I can do is an ID3v2 mention.

[tomcam]

Sold

[tomcam]

We’ll do a vinyl release as a tribute to your nominal brilliance

[Salgat]

At the same time you'll have a dramatic drop in car ownership (since it'll be far cheaper to be taxied), meaning less waste overall as each car is fully utilized for potentially dozens of people a day, rather than sitting on a concrete pad 20+ hours a day doing nothing but aging.

[nytesky]

I think people are too optimistic about the personal car as taxi approach. For anyone with families, I’ll have car seats installed, often you have personal items which I guess I would have to remember to always lock in the trunk. You will have passengers make a mess in your car, smoke and vape, even have sex (no driver!), and then I’ll pick up my kids and take them to soccer on same seat?

[Salgat]

If most cars on the road are taxis, this means a few things. 1) It'll be much cheaper than owning a car. 2) There will always be a car within a minute or two to pick you up when you're ready. 3) There will be cars of every configuration available, including ones with car seats for kids (although it's not a huge deal, my twin's car seats take less than a minute to install). 4) These cars will be checked daily, and if you do happen to get a dirty car, you can just report it and get another one in the next few minutes. They'll likely have cameras in the cars that will know if someones smoking or having sex in there, so not many folks will do it if they don't want to pay a huge fee or get banned from the service.

[chongli]

traffic apocalypse

I think this would ultimately be for the best. If the streets clogged up so severely with traffic then the value of owning a car would drop precipitously. Even if car owners lobbied successfully to widen all the streets the traffic would just expand to fill the available capacity.

People would finally be forced to seek alternatives!

[pigsty]

One thing I’ve learned is that unless the option absolutely disappears, people usually won’t search for alternatives when something goes to absolute shit. They’ll just complain and accept it.

It’s more likely that roads will be widened and traffic will grow to meet that supply than it is that cars start to go away. Cars only go away when governments announce near immediate bans.

[petre]

Or they'll vote the driverless vehicles out of their city like the Parisians did with the e-scooters.

[Disruptive_Dave]

HOV lanes for 1+ passenger cars.