A few days ago there were two major transport stories, the first was about a new record for rail patronage and the other topic was about the government looking to make it easier for driverless cars to be on New Zealands roads.
The prospect of cars travelling New Zealand highways with no one behind the wheel is moving closer says new Transport Minister Simon Bridges. Officials are reviewing legislation allowing for the testing of umanned autonomous vehicles on public roads.
Mr Bridges has pledged to work with environmental interests while also pursuing the Government’s road building programme.
Mr Bridges said he was committed to “a balanced approach” and ongoing investment roads were important even from a green perspective, “over time as we move to electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles”.
Mr Bridges said the Government was not doing a great deal to accommodate autonomous vehicle technology, “but I don’t think there’s any doubt that if you look at what’s going on internationally, maybe not in the next couple of years, but over time we will see driverless vehicles and that will have implications, like for example less congestion because vehicles can travel closer together”.
We’ve discussed driverless cars a bit in the past so I’m going to try and not rehash those arguments too much. What I do want to touch on is the odd relationship between them and rail. By that I mean opponents of rail investment often like to claim that rail is an old technology – despite the fact that modern rail systems involve some very sophisticated tech – and that we should instead look to the future which they see as being driverless cars. Of course some rail systems have been driverless for decades.
One of those opponents of rail investment is Phil McDermott who runs the ironically named Cities Matter blog which argues for low density and auto centric cities. He was a guest on Radio NZs The Panel talking about both rail and driverless cars however his contradictions were huge and probably about 0.8 on the David Seymour scale. The section on The Panel starts from ~11:15 and McDermott comes in from ~14:10
or listen here
He starts off by dragging up the old cliché that trains run on fixed routes but that roads allow for flexibility and then says that if the city develops as expected that people will be travelling across the city between centres. Of course everyone traipsing across town to dispersed centres is something we’ve been doing for decades and has only led to more and more congestion. The intention of the Auckland Plan is to focus growth in and around the central city, a handful of major metropolitan centres and a wider range of local town centres which are all linked by high quality public transport. It’s that public transport network, of which rail is an integrated part, that will be key to moving a huge volume of people around and doing so free of congestion.
Here are some of the other points and contradictions he made.
- Trains in Auckland are full by the time they get to the CBD but that we shouldn’t build the CRL as he thinks the trains won’t carry a lot of people. You really have to wonder what’s going on in his brain as it works through that logic.
- That the CRL doesn’t do enough for the transport system despite the fact it doubles the capacity of it.
- That we shouldn’t have intensification near rail lines as somehow it creates a high marginal cost for each extra trip however later he says if we want rail to work in NZ he says we need lots of cars on the road with people driving to stations with big park n ride facilities.
- That road building is ok because in his view the marginal costs are low which of course conveniently ignores that we’ve exhausted all the easy road building options and are now faced with massive costs for projects, often for not much gain in capacity or mobility.
- That driverless cars will increase car use and that it will make congestion worse, but it’s all ok because they might not be as polluting as our current fleet.
Many of the views he expressed are downright odd and I get the impression that what people like McDermott are really after is to preserve the status quo which they likely currently benefit from. Some might wonder why bother to even discuss the interview but unfortunately we still see the likes of Phil trotted out on a regular basis.
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Driverless cars – the replacement for monorails?
Ha, too true.
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/10/google_self_driving_car_it_may_never_actually_happen.single.html
It’s a false opposition of course. One is a real technology that works now in Auckland, the other an as yet unavailable miasma of possibilities. An as such is perfect for being used as a propaganda tool for those with no actual real argument.
It is curious that this supposedly transformative technology, disruptive even, means that we should keep doing exactly what we have been for the last 60 years; sprawl and pave.
It is sufficient to note that the advocates of computer driven cars argue that they will both reduce the number of vehicles and congestion through efficiency and that we must keep building more roads.
Oh and isn’t it funny watching the anti PT lobby responding to the public’s increasing desire to use buses and trains resort to the Yogi Berra complaint:
‘No one goes there anymore- it’s too crowded’
Well Patrick, I also wonder if the same argument that “no one uses trains” (or PT) is perpetuated because we report vehicle usage in VKT (i.e. “Kms” travelled by car).
Whereas PT is reported in “trips”. so when you compare billions of VKT’s with tens of million of “Trips” on an annual basis it makes the PT contribution look small.
If you you multiplied the trips out by Kms travelled I’m sure the VKT and PTKT would be similar.
And then like VKT you can do a meaningful side by side comparison of just how far PT is taking people overall comparing with the well used VKT numbers
On that basis alone AT needs to correct this oversight. I note that Wellington does report “passenger KMs” for all its modes.
Sure, I’d love to see that data, but PT trips v VKT does still give us the trend. And after all when vehicle use was growing strongly year on year like PT use is now that was the principle argument for the all in investment on driving amenity. It is only rational to expect the same reasoning to apply now that demand has clearly shifted, isn’t it? Funny though that the establishment now only wants to talk about gross mode share and not shifting demand.
True, but they argue that the mode shift and shifting demand is in personal travel, not in freight, and that freight based VKT is up and growing all the while private car VKT is down – so even when the VKT numbers look flat its hiding a mode shift within the VKT in favour of more freight.
This is the argument that the trucking lobby and the likes of NZTA are using to argue why 1+B invested in the East West Link is needed – all because of freight. They are quite shameless about it.
With PT getting a “allowance” in the future for PT enahncement, but not anything concrete or anytime soon.
And then they argue “well we’re building all these houses” (in the wops, without any PT options, forcing people to drive), so we know that personal VKT while declining now, will also rise in the future so we need to allow for that too – right now as we build the freight lanes and widen our motorways.
You can’t win on that basis – to do so you need to fight fire with fire.
Again true. But it is AT and NZTA’s role to not simply repeat and reinforce big trucking’s arguement but to nuance it. Explain to them how the PT boom is great for their members, getting cars out of their way, and why it should be encouraged and accelerated for increased road freight efficiency.
It was “interesting ” to hear the Onehunga business lobby group complain that Onehunga roads all choked up with traffic at the end of the day so the EastWest link is a must.
.
Then you ask them , well if the workers in these factories and houses people used more PT more then the trucks wouldn’t be stuck in traffic would they?
Then they argue, well theres zero PT options in Onehunga – so they all have to drive.
Which ends up clogging up the roads with parked cars most of the day and traffic the rest of the time.
But they just don’t get how any PT investment helps the trucking lobby more than another lane or two on the motorway ever will.
And these folks and the trucking lobby are their own worst enemy in that regard.
Yep NZTA and AT aren’t “changing the conversation” like they should be. And we’re all the poorer as a result.
I suspect that you’ll find that they’re absolutely terrified of cars being used less as it will show just how much that they’re presently subsidised by car users.
As cars come off the roads the government will have to put the taxes up on RUCs and cars. As that happens more cars will go off the road pushing the taxes up more. The end result will be that cars and trucks will be forced to bow to real economics.
We’ll probably keep some trucks for short deliveries in city and buses for PT but cars and long haul by truck will be gone. The ones kept will be seen as a real expense to bring about real societal benefits rather than the delusional profit.
There is speculation that driverless cars (if realised in any timeframe that is meaningful to you and I) will permit people to commute vast distances because they’ll be able to work, play, sleep or eat while being driven. There goes the neighbourhood.
It’s actually amusing to watch the anti-rail lobby desperately grasping at untried and probably unrealistic alternatives and presenting them as fait accompli. Reminds me of shows like Tomorrow’s World from the 1980s.
Yes all claims about the future are really arguments about who gets to control the present.
What neighbourhood would that be? The one miles from anywhere, or the one which is made up of the streets around the blocks near where you want to hang out for a while or where you work?
If taken to a logical and not so extreme conclusion, then people will live sleep and do everything else entirely from within their driverless cars. Emerging only to go to work or to eat out somewhere. And expectign their driverless car to “hang around” the neighbourhood waiting for them to need it again.
Which begs the question, why bother living “anywhere” in a real house or apartment – if the streets can become your neighbourhood courtesy of your mobile home?
Imagine if all those too poor or too self-interested to afford or bother to live near where they worked and instead simply got driverless campervans instead of resting or owning apartments or houses – then simply lived in these “on the streets” – how will that help solve congestion? Might fix some of the housing crisis and cause another one as a result.
Imagine what the CBD will be like when its crowded out not with buses and cars as it is now but with driverless cars and mobile homes – leaving no room for the buses or freight vehicles needed to allow the rest of us who live in normal “fixed” locations and commute to live our lives?
A key point here is driverless cars do allow a huge potential for a further privatising the public realm. And that is why some segments are pushing for them to happen.
Why would a freight company want a big yard to stable their trucks, if they can have them on the roads 24 x 7 even if they’re not carrying freight.
Yes you could legislate to some extent t ocontrol this but how can you separate legally a true driverless vehicle on its way from a to b with or without sleeping occupants from one which is merely “circling” the block for 8 hours solid?
Might be easiest to not go there any time soon – too much of a legal minefield I think
Case in point Time had a recent article about the sort of unexpected side effects of driverless cars could have – mobile bars where people do a pub crawl inside their driverless car was one such outcome.
Another was the need to grow organs for transplant instead of harvesting them from people killed in road accidents as we do now.
I can see the first example becoming very real, the second one (less traffic accidents)( not so much.
Driverless car would only work if only the safety legal risk responsibility is well defined. We also need adjustment of road code and “clues” infrastructure for those cars to be safer and works better
It puzzles me that the socialists who frequent this site are not staunch advocates of the driverless car. To me, as a capitalist and petrol-head, a driverless car would be every bit as limiting as PT. The fact alone that Google is pushing them provides a pretty strong hint that it’s a socialist’s dream.
jonno1 I have no idea who you are calling socialist, but then I also have no idea what you might mean by the word. Isn’t it a silly over simplification to try to claim that different technologies have political leanings?
But certainly I agree that no self-avowed petrol head could possibly be anything other than horrified at the prospect of being driven around in some panicy robot car… as a pedestrian however I do look forward regaining control of city streets that is surely the only conceivable outcome of any widespread application of this proposed technology.
They’ll have to be programmed to stop anywhere near a free-range human, won’t they?
Patrick,
People like jonno operate on the principle that when they can’t come up with any argument, then just slap a (what they think is) pejorative label on them and hey presto! No need for any of that annoying “thinking” stuff.
Cue proposed law change “consultation” from Minister Bridges:
“our jaywalking laws are out of date and inadequate. We propose that in instances where data recorders demonstrate that a pedestrian was crossing in the wrong place that we allow this evidence to be assigned “weight” in hearings”
Yes this I think is likely and may actually bring on a serious fight over the rights to the street, probably resulting in new forms of segregation; people only urban cores and car only suburbs:
‘Then we’ll be back to a situation like the early 1900s roads. For people’s own safety, officials will start imposing restrictions on pedestrians.’
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/13967/will-driverless-cars-really-slow-for-pedestrians/
Most of us are pretty fiscally conservative and socially liberal actually. Not many socialists around here, only insofar as some folk automatically equate using a bus every now and again as red banner waving McCarthy bait.
One question no one has been able to answer for me. How are driverless cars any different from everyone using taxis all the time? And given we have that option, and that taxis would become incredibly cheap if we all did use them all the time, what is it supposed to do hats different?
Yeah, they’re just pods really, aren’t they?
One obvious thing (and you can look to countries like Singapore where taxis are cheap transportion for this already).
You’ll end up queueing for the robot taxi instead of the bus or train.
Surely an improvement over the status quo right? 😉
Indeed, self-driving cars as often described would essentially be self-driving taxis. I have written two posts about this on my blog and I’m pretty skeptical of the supposed “end of transit” that they would bring about. Even supposing that all the kinks in the technology get sorted out and that the sensors required for them to work require little additional cost and maintenance, the reality is that only about 50% of taxis’ costs today go to drivers. So remove drivers and the cost for taxis fall by half… but still remain around 1$ per km, a full-on marginal cost that would very much discourage widespread use of autonomous taxis. The issue is deadheading, autonomous taxis would need to drive from one customer to the other, especially in the case of widespread peak hour use. Which means that for maybe one kilometer with a passenger in, the taxi will drive two kilometers, which would be terrible economically, environmentally and would risk provoking a lot of congestion by increasing the amount of cars on the road. The ratio can be better… but only if taxis are rare, the more widespread their use, the more deadheading they will do, the more taxis will idle most of the day. Private cars would be more efficient, because in private cars, you have no labor to pay for and no deadheading at all. Meanwhile, driverless small-size buses (midibuses) could become a viable solution for most fixed route transit lines in lower density areas, and could lower transit costs by up to 50% thanks to smaller vehicles (so less expensive, less costly to maintain and operate) and the removal of drivers.
Autonomous taxis, like Personal Rapid Transit, is an attractive transport solution when analyzed on an individual case-by-case basis but that just doesn’t scale well. And that’s presuming no technological problem to derail their implementation.
As I say below I can imagine a system exactly like the Autolib in Paris, where there are lots of reserved parking spaces for the system [and charging points too] to minimise deadrunning. The only difference is that the machine does the driving. So I suppose you have to ask as very few cities have Autolib systems which obviously don’t rely on sophisticated autonomous vehicles why would this system suddenly be viable with that added cost?
This is an interesting article/blog post from “The Atlantic”, this is a series of posts about the California High Speed Rail (HSR) system.
And there too the argument is that the HSR project is not needed as DriverLess cars will make it obsolete by the time it completes.
The latest post (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/10/why-you-shouldnt-get-your-hopes-up-for-the-self-driving-car-calif-high-speed-rail-no-14/381850/ )
has some relevant stuff about Driverless cars versus the HSR and is a combination of reader feedback and analysis.
Well worth a read.
Some points of real relevance in this post. But a couple stand out.
A lot of the pro arguments for driverless are once boiled down, merely arguments for “Newness for newness sake” – on the basis that its newer so must be better right?
While many folks thought that when buses replaced trams in Auckland in the 50’s, the longer term assessment may not judge them so kindly.
Second (and just as relevant), just because we *Want* something doesn’t mean it will happen. Its not a Pantene commercial.
Example of this from that article:
“Would you prefer a system where you can be instantly teleported from SF to LA?” “Of course.” But, that doesn’t mean its going to happen soon.
Should we therefore postpone all vehicle based transport improvements because “Teleportation technology” ala Star Trek is around the corner?
And dude, where *is* my flying car?
Theres an extreme irony in this debate, as matt notes: improvements in driverless technology will likely benefit public transport more than private vehicles. Trains, buses, and taxis are likely to be driverless well before mass change in private car fleet.
Not only that Stu, but driverless cars, especially as driverless taxis will fit in with the networks of existing forms of travel you don’t drive personally; trains, buses, ferries, well, making their use more seamless. Take the robot car to the station for example.
Robot cars may well breakdown the private ownership of cars, in fact it is possible that they will disrupt driving culture much more than PT, which in fact they resemble.
And freight movement, with robot trucks, they’d be on the road 24 hours day, no need to rest up for 8-10 hours as the current law requires.
So on that basis, since freight transport can occur over 24 hours not just 14 you’d get a 40% boost on your roads immediately with robot trucks.
The scheduling of robot trucks would make a huge difference. The trucks could just lay up during peak traffic, majority of freight moved overnight. When you don’t have to worry about a drivers hours you have a much greater flexibility.
Already happening, apparently, in Australia. It was in the paper just last week – the giant 100 tonne payload iron ore trucks in the mines in Western Australia have been converted to driverless mode, and so they can keep hauling ore out of the ground without having to stop for lunch breaks. More reliable than people. Hard to get skilled drivers apparently. So now, no jobs for drivers in the mines.
I read the Cities Matter blog article that accompanied the recording and wondered about a couple of things:
– If the cars are driverless, why would PT & Transit in particular require park and ride facilities to increase? Is it because the cars can’t move in the first few generations without a driver being present, if so where’s the benefit
– Are driverless cars and robot cars the same thing, but at different points in the continuum of automation
– The mix of driverless and driven cars on the same network makes the part of my brain that resolves logic problems and write computer programs melt (it made me feel stupid, couldn’t even figure out a place to start), so would driverless cars need their own network, grade separated and all, like Transit?
– How much will it cost and who stands the most to benefit, my general principle is if unsure, follow the money to find the motive
Another of the articles on his blog talked about the addition of cars in the expected to be built Great North Road apartments:
– More cars only if there are car parks available, AND
– There are no PT/Transit options that provide a level of service (which I’m defining as destination and frequency) at a price residents are willing to accept
There were some comments a few days ago, which seem to be echoed on this topic, talking about PT being a left versus right political spectrum issue. I see it more as a closed versus open minded issue. The majority of commenter’s are open to the possibility that people would prefer to reduce reliance on private motor vehicles in favour of public transport and this is driving changes in VKT and urban density patterns, for a range of reasons that make sense to the individual.
Well here’s a link to a driverless booster site with an interesting future timeline:
http://www.driverless-future.com
Note the writer thinks that the current automakers will be killed by this technology because fewer vehicles will be required, that car ownership will plummet. He also thinks short distance transit will be disrupted. Also note that he thinks there will have to be laws against ‘bullying autonomous vehicle’ by walking on streets! What mega ‘jaywalking’ enforcement; bleak!
Also that there will be protests from sacked drivers, especially in freight industry. Strange he doesn’t mention taxi industry too, as it seems to me that this is the likely first casualty of any widespread successful roll out of bot cars.
Surely current bike share schemes and the electric car share one in Paris are likely models. Not private ownership. To me the worst aspect of taxis after the cost is the interaction with the driver, so a card or phone activated car share system at much lower cost could kill tha taxi industry. But then this is just like a transit system as it would have to city wide and centrally operated….. The prospect of Driverless cars are a red herring in the Transit debate.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autolib‘
A very good post discussion – I loved it !
Here is an analysis of various carsharing programmes running in Paris [in English] including Autolib [one way trips ie most like Transit use] and intra-urban and ex-urban two way rental programmes. http://6t.fr/download/AD_ExecutiveSummary_140523.pdf
It concludes that the success of these programmes does come at the expense of all other systems [private cars, Transit, cycling, even walking] but that what they disrupt the most are taxis and private car ownership.
In my view these are the systems that most accurately show us how fully autonomous vehicles are most likely to impact movement in cities in the future. Up until full autonomy they will just be like super cruise control on new top end vehicles and not really have any impact especially as they won’t make much in-road into our total fleet for a very long time.
It’s really disappointing that they get somebody like this on national radio without an intelligent voice to call BS on some of his assertions.
The idea (in a comment above that driverless allows the 150km commute) is totally ignoring climate effects of having a dispersed population. Carbon pollution should be part of every conversation about things that use energy in NZ. It isn’t and that sucks. It occurred to me the other day that while John Key is so keen to leave a legacy of being a 4 term government, in time he will only be judged on how he responded to the climate change challenge.
How would a driverless taxi know where you want to go? Voice recognition?
How would a driverless taxi make you pay your fare when you get out? Presumably you would have to swipe a card to get *in* (like with a car share membership card), then it would charge the card without further intervention from you when you get out.
Yup, GPS, some kind of screen interface and membership system like the Autolib. Probably by smartphone rather than cards, cards are a bit last century don’t you think?
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1092259_indianapolis-electric-car-sharing-we-drive-blueindys-bluecar
Autolib about yo start in Indianapolis.
Imagine how good it would be for cyclists. You could ride in any lane, change lanes in safety, cars would just follow along at a safe distance until they could pass safely. Its a nice dream. We are more likely to get a practical electric car before driverless cars. They are just another red herring put up by the anti PT build more roads lobby.
either that or they’ll make all roads “cars only” banning motorcycles on the way.
I guess cars that can drive themselves are a natural step forward in technology.
Seems like a good idea to me as a self employed businessman, as I can work on my way to the next job
bring it on I say!