How Can Transit Compete With the Coming Onslaught of Driverless Cars?

[marmar]

from McClatchy, via MassTransitMag:



March 19--One of the arguments against light rail is that it's old technology.

Some opponents point to the arrival of driverless cars in the next decade as a public-transit killer.

"Why would you take a fixed route anywhere," the argument goes, "if you can jump into a driverless car that can take you anywhere?"

So, can public transit compete against driverless tech?

A post from Jarrett Walker, a public transit consultant and blogger, landed in my inbox this week. He argues that transit will always have a place in dense cities.

In his blog, "Human Transit," Walker writes that mass transit will remain crucial in places defined by a shortage of space per person. Mass transit, where densities are high enough to support it, is an immensely efficient use of space, he says. ...........(more)

http://www.masstransitmag.com/news/12184385/getting-around-how-can-public-transit-compete-with-the-coming-onslaught-of-driverless-cars

[Warpy]

1. Driverless cars will never replace public transit

The whole point of mass transit is to move a lot of people at the same time in the most efficient way possible. Choking the road with driverless cars is not going to accomplish this, it will just make everybody late to work due to driverless traffic jams.

The industry that needs to worry is trucking. I can also see the interstate system becoming too dangerous for cars to use once all the driverless behemoths take over.

[djean111]

2. That Google car that hit a bus might set things back a bit.

Anyway, no, driver-less cars would never replace mass transit. In big cities, all those cars zipping around, needing parking places - to replace the excellent subway and rail system? Not even logical.

[KamaAina]

3. Or, How Can Transit Collaborate With the Coming Onslaught of Driverless Cars?

By focusing on high-speed service along key corridors, and having people take driverless cars to get to transit centers. The resulting network would look something like what Houston just came up with, although they obviously don't have the driverless car for the "last mile" yet.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11302141

Or, by deploying driverless cars to serve low-density areas instead of clunky "flex" or "demand-response" routes that often require advance reservations. Here it's an Orlando suburb that is beta-testing the idea, with Uber instead of driverless.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11302165