[sharken]

The future for self driving cars are closed roads where only driverless cars are allowed.

The ethical issues when a driverless car kills someone cannot be solved in a reasonable way.

The question is which city/country will be the first to implement roads for driverless cars only ?

[jamesrr39]

> The future for self driving cars are closed roads where only driverless cars are allowed.

Given that human-driven cars, trucks, cyclists are already on the roads and will be for quite a while to come, and pedestrians already cross it, you would have to build a whole new road network, with crossing points for human-driven vehicles/pedestrian traffic. Which is simply infeasible, both in terms of money, but also simply space, especially in built-up areas where the space is already fully utilised.

[sharken]

Quite right, it is infeasible to close roads for self driving cars only.

Which begs the question: How are self driving cars ever going to be mainstream?

[marssaxman]

> The future for self driving cars are closed roads where only driverless cars are allowed.

This is the present in Honolulu, as of last year: a fleet of self driving cars, operating on a closed road where only driverless cars are allowed, transports over 3000 people per day. The service is called "Skyline".

[jhbadger]

I looked it up and it seems to just be a typical driverless train, more or less the same as is found in airports for changing terminals, except that this is longer than those. It might be a good service, but not quite as exciting as your description.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyline_(Honolulu)

[marssaxman]

Well, yes: it was a tongue-in-cheek way to observe that requiring closed roads for self-driving vehicles would render the whole exercise pointless. We already have a more efficient solution for that problem, with no need for any exciting new technology!

[jamesrr39]

On a larger scale: Copenhagen and Vancouver both have fully-automated metro systems (i.e. driverless systems). Presumably there are many other cities with such systems around the world, and they probably all work nicely.

Fine for getting around different areas of the cities, but it's not going to drive you wherever you want to go though.