Highway spending increased by 90% in 2021. This is one of many reasons why car traffic is growing faster than population growth.
I’d argue against that.
The concept of robot taxi sounds nice, but it devolves into an unsustainable mess. Ride sharing isn’t simple, especially when we talk about uncertain way points. Meaningfully matching cases where people can share a robot car with completely random drop off is a logistical nightmare. I used to work at a Ride hailing company as an analyst, and people being unhappy with the duration of the shared ride was the biggest issue for that category (removing for generic cases like payment issues).
Additionally, I’m sure it’s going to be a safety factor. I’m unlikely to get into a car with a random stranger when there’s literally no one else in the car. Miss me with trusting some corporate with safety in such cases.
I’ve done ride shares a few times with Uber and it went pretty well. Basically it only worked from downtown to the airport, as the only scenarios with similar routes. Maybe a sporting or music event would be the same, I don’t know
I’m not sure what you mean here by Downtown.
But again, if all you’re looking for is a good transport system from one high population density area (airports almost always are) to another high population density area, you’ll be better served by having a reliable and decently fast metro train or the likes, than a cab, as long as people don’t mind walking for 5-10 minutes from their closest stop. If that distance is higher, by all means taxis are amazing for last mile connectivity. But expecting cars to solve public transport at large has always looked like a losing battle to me.
Boston. I’ve gotten shared rides between downtown Boston and the airport but that’s the only scenario where I’ve been able to
It’s also a bit of a cautionary tale on transit, because Boston managed to screw that up with too many connections making it take too long.
- Subway. But only the blue line, no connection to red line, and you need to transfer to a bus.
- silver line. Connects to red line only. Glorified bus, drives in regular traffic.
- park and ride - no overnight parking.
- AirPort Express bus. Only serves outer burbs
If I want to goto the airport from my home in the inner ‘burbs:
- commuter train is up to 2 hours apart, limited hours. Can head into town, walk a block or two to the blue line, wait as long as 20 minutes, take that to the airport. Wait up to 5 minutes for a shuttle, take that to the terminal. Not practical.
- drive to red line. No overnight parking. Wait up to 20 minutes for subway, take it to silver line. Wait up to 20 minutes. Get stuck in traffic in the tunnels. Not practical.
I have lots of great transit options but none that connect smoothly and frequently enough to actually use. This is better when living in the city but still all the connections and delays turn what should be a great transit experience into an impractical one. I’m going to end up driving to the airport every time (up to three day trip or Uber for longer)
Thank you, that is a very interesting insight. But besides sharing cars in parallel (multiple passengers at once) there can also be sequential sharing, which is, I understand, a regular taxi without a driver. But I think that high availability of cars like that, which are cheap, would still reduce the amount of car owners, and consequently increase public transportation utilization.
Why do something that complicated when bus and tram lines are way more efficient? Cities need to take the money they apend on subsidizing car ownership and invest it into mass transit.
Because trams and busses can’t fulfill every need. Certain point to point transportation options still need to exist, we just need to make them as efficient as possible.
And as I mentioned in another comment, turns out busses aren’t really as efficient as I thought they were. Fully packed small cars are way more efficient.
Edit: Changed my mind. See previous comment.
