Yesterday, I ended my post about self-driving cars with a specific scenario. This scenario was that sometime in the future we got rid of personal car ownership. There will still be cars on the road, but they belong to corporations or public entities and are driving autonomous. Like an Uber/Lyft today, a driverless car will be at our disposal with the push of a button. How do you think life would look like as a consequence?
Let’s start with the most obvious.
Land use
We won’t need as many parking lots. Ideally, this space is used for parks, helping to make cities greener than they are now. Likely however this extra space will be used for more buildings making urban areas even denser, and along with it traffic. A good thing is that self-driving cars will allow navigating in very dense traffic without clogging it.
Traffic flow
Autonomous cars are full of sensors and devices allowing all sorts of communication, e.g. among each other or with city infrastructure. Distances between cars can be minimized and traffic lights may even be controlled through that communication and thus maximize possible traffic flow immensely. Emergency vehicles will get much faster through traffic as contrary to human drivers no one will overlooking them or not know what to do.
Traffic safety
The number traffic-related accidents will drastically fall, making vehicular traffic the safest mode of transportation. In fact it may be even safer than sleeping in your bed, as your car may be able to monitor basic life functions and notice when you are in distress. Cars may then not only communicate your situation to the closest hospital they will drive you right in front it.
Productivity/Leisure
Today many people commute more than 60 minutes per day, with both hands at the wheel there is only so much one can do. However, when driving becomes a passive activity, we would suddenly have lots of additional time at our now free hands. Of course, we could continue to work, but we could also watch movies, listen to music, play video games, read or even sleep.
Less air and noise pollution
It is much easier for computers to control electric cars than it is for conventional cars with combustion engines. It’s also much easier (i.e. safer) to automatically connect a car to a plug than it is to fill it with gas. There is no fire hazard with electric cars and they have much fever moving parts than mechanical combustion engines. So if there is ever a scenario like this one, all cars (or almost all) cars will likely be electric cars. Thus, drastically improving the air quality in cities. Also, electric cars are silent, self-driving cars wouldn’t honk and traffic noise wouldn’t be a problem anymore. If parking lots would be replaced with green areas then cities could become pleasant sanctuaries of local recreation.
This all sounds like a great new future, but of course, there are drawbacks and many secondary effects. More about those in the next days.