Driverless Impacts

The discussion around driverless vehicles has increased dramatically over the last few years and I suspect will only continue to escalate in the years to come. What’s also increased is the almost religious zeal by which some preach the technology, promising it will deliver some form utopian future. …
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Driverless Light Rail

Many people comment to me how driverless technology will make transit obsolete, but I disagree, many of the advantages driverless cars have will apply to driverless transit too. Of course, we already have cities already have driverless transit by way of their metros and further, I’d argue that driverless technology will provide greater advantages to transit.…
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Will driverless cars make things better, or worse?

There continues to be a lot of hype and excitement around driverless cars, with the first vehicles hitting roads in Britain recently and the NZ Herald running an opinion piece by Paul Minett earlier this week that was generally good, although perhaps a bit excitable about the need to stop all current investments in roads and public transport.…
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Driverless cars, sprawl and density

This is a guest post from reader Frank McRae The emergence of driverless vehicle technology has created much excitement, and speculation about how these vehicles will affect the development of cities. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal claimed that a major consequence of driverless vehicles will be the outward sprawl of cities (Driverless cars to fuel suburban sprawl): Here is the weirdest thing about this hypothetical future: where you live….you…
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Driverless cars to increase congestion

Proponents of driverless cars often suggest the technology will make all sorts of significant changes to transport. Gone will be car ownership with people just hiring a car when they need one, like taxi’s only easier and cheaper. As such they say gone too will be the need for public transport, especially when you take away some of the benefits PT currently has like being able to do other things such as work, read, use a phone or even sleep.…
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Will people choose to buy new vehicle technologies?

Last year we started to take a look at an emerging technology that some claim will revolutionise urban transport – driverless cars. My view is that they aren’t all they’re cracked up to be – if we wanted to, we could easily get the purported benefits by investing in existing, proven technology: While driverless cars (or hoverboards for that matter) sound exciting, we can’t afford to pin all of our hopes on them.…
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