The following question was recently posted on Quora:
The nature of car ownership could change with the introduction of autonomous vehicles. People would no longer own individual cars but be part of car cooperatives. This would allow people to summon vehicles wherever and whenever they want them. Because of the increased efficiency of point-to-point transportation that autonomous vehicles provide, And considering the development density of many medium-size American cities which of primary catered to automobiles, will probably transit in the cities still be relevant? My intuition tells me that rapid transit lines could still be relevant in areas with more density.
Also because autonomous vehicles are going to make it easier to drive does that mean we should still pursue development policies that cater to Autonomous vehicles? Suburban infrastructure requires significantly more investment and energy usage then denser urban development. And public transit at capacity still is more energy-efficient.
Read the response of Joseph Guindi, Thermodynamics Engineer, below.
I don’t think so, because there are a number of known limitations to autonomous vehicles.
- Autonomous vehicles are not mass transit, they are a convenience over manually driven vehicles.
- Autonomous vehicles may still require a driver as a backup. Their performance is limited to good weather and uncongested areas. It hasn’t exactly proven itself in a variety of conditions nor that it could fully replace a driver. When an autonomous vehicle can drive a snowplow or win the Indy 500 I might revise that position.
- Mass transit does not compete with cars (autonomous or otherwise) it is rather complementary. It is designed around three primary goals:(a) providing a reasonable means of transportation for people who can’t afford a car or people who don’t want to own a car(b) relieving urban congestion
(c) reducing urban pollution
and, well, none of these is addressed by introducing autonomous vehicles, not by autonomous vehicles per se.
Cars, whether autonomous or not, are not less energy efficient than mass transit, which can rarely if ever operate at capacity, even at rush hour, due to the fact that during rush hour the flow of people is usually in one direction and is empty in the opposite direction. The last time I checked the statistics, cars versus mass transit is mostly even in terms of energy usage, and with autonomous vehicles there might be scope for massive improvements if they can get the issues in #2 sorted out.
There are certain things that they can integrate to autonomous vehicles to drastically alter some of the rationale of mass transit:
- Platooning technology can address many urban congestion issues
- Fully autonomous vehicles could perhaps be made much smaller and work as a call-up service, which could make them much cheaper, faster and energy efficient
But I’m still quite bearish with autonomous vehicle technology, mainly because I don’t think it has arrived at a sufficient level of maturity, especially with all-around weather operation.