Flexible kerb space idea could result in pop-up cycle lanes

Rich_cb wrote:

don simon wrote:

Where is all this extra off-road parking going to come from? Notwithstanding your figures have been plucked out of thin air.

What figures have been picked from thin air? There is so much off road parking already available, driverless cars could also park more efficiently making better use of the existing space. The growth of driverless taxis will also eliminate a lot of demand for parking at places of work etc freeing up more off road parking space.

Picked from thin air are the 10 mins and 95%,  unless you can provide supporting evidence that satisfies my scrutiny, then it's pure speculation on your part.

You'll have to be more specific on where this available parking spoace is too and the more efficient use of existing space.

Why would driverless taxis increas usage? Apart from not getting the less than casual racist commentry and crap driving, there is no evidence to show that people will decide to use driverless taxis in place of car ownership. That isn't going to go away unless we have another way of demonstrating wealth/success.

don simon wrote:

Picked from thin air are the 10 mins and 95%,  unless you can provide supporting evidence that satisfies my scrutiny, then it's pure speculation on your part.

You'll have to be more specific on where this available parking spoace is too and the more efficient use of existing space.

Why would driverless taxis increas usage? Apart from not getting the less than casual racist commentry and crap driving, there is no evidence to show that people will decide to use driverless taxis in place of car ownership. That isn't going to go away unless we have another way of demonstrating wealth/success.

The 10 mins is just an arbitrary number. The 95% figure is well known. Just Google it.

Car ownership is lower in London than the rest of the UK. London is far wealthier than the rest of the UK suggesting that tragically inadequate Londoners have found ways to compensate other than a big 4x4. It also suggests that reliable public transport reduces the demand for private car ownership.

Rich_cb wrote:

don simon wrote:

Picked from thin air are the 10 mins and 95%,  unless you can provide supporting evidence that satisfies my scrutiny, then it's pure speculation on your part.

You'll have to be more specific on where this available parking spoace is too and the more efficient use of existing space.

Why would driverless taxis increas usage? Apart from not getting the less than casual racist commentry and crap driving, there is no evidence to show that people will decide to use driverless taxis in place of car ownership. That isn't going to go away unless we have another way of demonstrating wealth/success.

The 10 mins is just an arbitrary number. The 95% figure is well known. Just Google it. Car ownership is lower in London than the rest of the UK. London is far wealthier than the rest of the UK suggesting that tragically inadequate Londoners have found ways to compensate other than a big 4x4. It also suggests that reliable public transport reduces the demand for private car ownership.

So the figures were indeed plucked out of thin air.

Taxis are not public transport.

London, in so many ways is not representative of the rest of the UK, I also see the daily complaints of both the cost and running of the lauded London public transport system. Almost to the point that makes me think that people are forced to use it rather than choose and given an alternative, they would take it.

Public transport can work is large cities, and car usage can be reduced in large cities. Cycling can be made safer in large cities too, I've seen it, but I'll let you come up with a solution instead of speculating.

What's a big 4x4 got to do with anything?

don simon wrote:

So the figures were indeed plucked out of thin air.

Taxis are not public transport.

London, in so many ways is not representative of the rest of the UK, I also see the daily complaints of both the cost and running of the lauded London public transport system. Almost to the point that makes me think that people are forced to use it rather than choose and given an alternative, they would take it.

Public transport can work is large cities, and car usage can be reduced in large cities. Cycling can be made safer in large cities too, I've seen it, but I'll let you come up with a solution instead of speculating.

What's a big 4x4 got to do with anything?

Arbitrary figures are just that. I wouldn't expect you to understand.

The 95% figure is well known.
Here's a link, educate yourself: http://bfy.tw/IIDH

Taxis are often classified as public transport.

Everything is speculation when we're discussing
possible future developments.

Rich_cb wrote:

don simon wrote:

So the figures were indeed plucked out of thin air.

 

Taxis are not public transport.

London, in so many ways is not representative of the rest of the UK, I also see the daily complaints of both the cost and running of the lauded London public transport system. Almost to the point that makes me think that people are forced to use it rather than choose and given an alternative, they would take it.

Public transport can work is large cities, and car usage can be reduced in large cities. Cycling can be made safer in large cities too, I've seen it, but I'll let you come up with a solution instead of speculating.

What's a big 4x4 got to do with anything?

Arbitrary figures are just that. I wouldn't expect you to understand. The 95% figure is well known. Here's a link, educate yourself: http://bfy.tw/IIDH Taxis are often classified as public transport. Everything is speculation when we're discussing possible future developments.

Can't help yourself in debates, can you? The second you struggle to justify what you've said, it all gets personal and insulting, with a bit of condescension thrown in. You asked me why I called your figures as being plucked out of thin air, your response is that they are arbitary figures and decided to go on one of your typical battles. 

You still haven't told me why a 4x4 gets a special mention, I don't expect you can. I do expect you to have the last word though.

Have a great bank holiday, perhaps you could buy yourself a bike and go for a ride. You might enjoy it.

don simon wrote:

Can't help yourself in debates, can you? The second you struggle to justify what you've said, it all gets personal and insulting, with a bit of condescension thrown in. You asked me why I called your figures as being plucked out of thin air, your response is that they are arbitary figures and decided to go on one of your typical battles. 

You still haven't told me why a 4x4 gets a special mention, I don't expect you can. I do expect you to have the last word though.

Have a great bank holiday, perhaps you could buy yourself a bike and go for a ride. You might enjoy it.

 

You tried to be clever and failed.

The 10 mins is arbitrary, it could be 5, 15, 20 etc without changing the point. It therefore doesn't need a reference.

All but the most obtuse would recognise that the 95% figure is the important one. That is based on widely known research and is similar in most western countries. Did you not follow the link provided?

You mentioned how people need a nice car to show wealth/success, that seems a bit pathetic. Hence the 4x4 mention. Touch a nerve?

Rich_cb wrote:

don simon wrote:

Can't help yourself in debates, can you? The second you struggle to justify what you've said, it all gets personal and insulting, with a bit of condescension thrown in. You asked me why I called your figures as being plucked out of thin air, your response is that they are arbitary figures and decided to go on one of your typical battles. 

You still haven't told me why a 4x4 gets a special mention, I don't expect you can. I do expect you to have the last word though.

Have a great bank holiday, perhaps you could buy yourself a bike and go for a ride. You might enjoy it.

 

You tried to be clever and failed. The 10 mins is arbitrary, it could be 5, 15, 20 etc without changing the point. It therefore doesn't need a reference. All but the most obtuse would recognise that the 95% figure is the important one. That is based on widely known research and is similar in most western countries. Did you not follow the link provided? You mentioned how people need a nice car to show wealth/success, that seems a bit pathetic. Hence the 4x4 mention. Touch a nerve?

Why? You're irrational hatred of 4x4s without knowing anything about them is both interesting and odd at the same time. But hey...

don simon wrote:

Why? You're irrational hatred of 4x4s without knowing anything about them is both interesting and odd at the same time. But hey...

I don't hate 4x4s. I think people who drive cars larger than they need are incredibly selfish.

If they do so for vanity reasons they're obviously quite inadequate people so maybe they deserve sympathy rather than scorn?

Rich_cb wrote:

On street parking won't be needed as cars can simply go and park themselves elsewhere. A car driving for 10 minutes to an off road parking facility uses up a piece of road for 10 minutes. A car parked on the road uses up a piece of road for hours/days/weeks until the car is driven next. As most cars are parked for 95% of the time the amount of street space freed up by that one change will be huge.

Fantastic. So not only will we have congestion from driverless cars taking people (I use the plural hopefully) to work and dropping them off, we'll now have the extra trips where the driverless cars go off and park themselves and return later in the day to pick up their owner, extending the rush hour.

Rich_cb wrote:

Driverless taxis will also massively reduce second car ownership, freeing up more space, and eventually, imho, virtually eradicate private car ownership.

It's an interesting opinion but surely if this was to be so it'd already have happened with regular taxis. IMHO the only eradication that might happen is the eradication of taxi drivers, which some may argue has it's merits.

aegisdesign wrote:

Fantastic. So not only will we have congestion from driverless cars taking people (I use the plural hopefully) to work and dropping them off, we'll now have the extra trips where the driverless cars go off and park themselves and return later in the day to pick up their owner, extending the rush hour.

It's an interesting opinion but surely if this was to be so it'd already have happened with regular taxis. IMHO the only eradication that might happen is the eradication of taxi drivers, which some may argue has it's merits.

You'll also have huge amounts of additional road capacity freed up by the removal of parked cars from the roads plus more efficient use of road space and far more incentive to car share.

Taxis are currently too expensive to replace regular private car use, remove the driver and reduce the insurance premium and the cost will fall dramatically.

This will make private taxi hire economically competitive with regular car use and hence eliminate most private car ownership.

Once private ownership has ceased there will be further reductions in congestion as parking will happen far less frequently.

Rich_cb wrote:

aegisdesign wrote:

Fantastic. So not only will we have congestion from driverless cars taking people (I use the plural hopefully) to work and dropping them off, we'll now have the extra trips where the driverless cars go off and park themselves and return later in the day to pick up their owner, extending the rush hour.

It's an interesting opinion but surely if this was to be so it'd already have happened with regular taxis. IMHO the only eradication that might happen is the eradication of taxi drivers, which some may argue has it's merits.

You'll also have huge amounts of additional road capacity freed up by the removal of parked cars from the roads plus more efficient use of road space and far more incentive to car share.

Taxis are currently too expensive to replace regular private car use, remove the driver and reduce the insurance premium and the cost will fall dramatically.

This will make private taxi hire economically competitive with regular car use and hence eliminate most private car ownership.

Once private ownership has ceased there will be further reductions in congestion as parking will happen far less frequently.

Most roads where congestion is an issue are already no parking at any time or at peak times.
This capacity you are magically freeing up would be mostly residential roads, I don't really want my road to be considered available capacity to reduce congestion on the main roads.
I reckon my car may well be parked 95% of the time but most of this is on my driveway and not an issue to anyone.
However, most commuters dream of driving for only 8.5 hours per week.
Not sure where you think these driverless cars will take themselves off to either. It's a nice idea that they will go to be used by someone else but if there are enough to meet rush hour demand there woukd be a massive surplus the rest of the time so most would need somewhere to be parked or they would be endlessly circulating on the roads, making car travel even less efficient than it is now.

wycombewheeler wrote:

Most roads where congestion is an issue are already no parking at any time or at peak times.
This capacity you are magically freeing up would be mostly residential roads, I don't really want my road to be considered available capacity to reduce congestion on the main roads.
I reckon my car may well be parked 95% of the time but most of this is on my driveway and not an issue to anyone.
However, most commuters dream of driving for only 8.5 hours per week.
Not sure where you think these driverless cars will take themselves off to either. It's a nice idea that they will go to be used by someone else but if there are enough to meet rush hour demand there woukd be a massive surplus the rest of the time so most would need somewhere to be parked or they would be endlessly circulating on the roads, making car travel even less efficient than it is now.

That's not the case where I live, a lot of congestion and the ensuing pollution on residential streets.

There is already enough parking capacity for the rush hour cars. If they were driverless and not privately owned a large proportion of them could be assigned to another job immediately after rush hour. The number of parked cars would fall dramatically.

Most of us wouldn't want our streets used for additional traffic but I certainly wouldn't object to having a segregated cycle route on my street.

Rich_cb wrote:

rkemb wrote:

How? They still have to be somewhere. They're either driving around, or parked. And driving around takes up more road space than parking...

This is only true if driverless cars result in there being far fewer cars in use than now, and it's not obvious that that is the outcome. Car sharing schemes have failed to make any significant dent in car ownership, and assuming that autonomous vehicles will is not a "most basic level" step.

On street parking won't be needed as cars can simply go and park themselves elsewhere. A car driving for 10 minutes to an off road parking facility uses up a piece of road for 10 minutes. A car parked on the road uses up a piece of road for hours/days/weeks until the car is driven next. As most cars are parked for 95% of the time the amount of street space freed up by that one change will be huge. Driverless taxis will also massively reduce second car ownership, freeing up more space, and eventually, imho, virtually eradicate private car ownership.

Just running with this for the moment, because while I'm unconvinced any of this will ever happen, it's interesting to try and imagine how it would work in an ideal case.  No longer storing cars in throughfares would certainly be a huge improvement.

If you say 10 minutes, then, given current speeds are about 10mph on average in rush hour in inner London, that would imply you'd want large (multi-storey?) parking for these self-driving-taxis such that they are within two miles of any point where someone would want one,.

To be fair that's actually not as mad as I first thought, as I think, if I have this right, it works out as very roughly one such depot per inner London borough.  Which might actually be possible.  Outside that area distances are greater but so are traffic speeds.

So the idea would be - summon one from the nearest depot to collect you, go to where you want to be, then it parks itself in the nearest depot to that?

One question is, they'd surely have to redistribute themselves back to the home depot, or else they'd end up in the wrong places...but I suppose that could be done outside the rush hours, as long as the depots are large enough not to run out during peak times (and that's an issue I can't work out - just how much capacity would be required in these multi-story carparks?).

But what I don't get, is why, then, this doesn't already happen with human-driven taxis?  Why do those taxis instead wait on public streets or cruise around looking for custom?  Why doesn't Uber already work like that?

  Your argument would be, I guess, then, that the labour cost of the human driver makes taxis too expensive to achieve the necessary critical mass?

I dunno... I'm not convinced that the things will work on a technical level (the actual driving part), nor that the people who currently choose to drive 1 mile to buy a paper (and a huge proportion of urban car trips are a mile or so) would rather wait 10 minutes for a self-driving taxi to turn up and take them there.  In many cases they could walk there in hardly any more time than you are envisaging them waiting for a self-driving taxi.  If they were that patient, would they really be driving to begin with?

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

Just running with this for the moment, because while I'm unconvinced any of this will ever happen, it's interesting to try and imagine how it would work in an ideal case.  No longer storing cars in throughfares would certainly be a huge improvement.

 

If you say 10 minutes, then, given current speeds are about 10mph on average in rush hour in inner London, that would imply you'd want large (multi-storey?) parking for these self-driving-taxis such that they are within two miles of any point where someone would want one,.

To be fair that's actually not as mad as I first thought, as I think, if I have this right, it works out as very roughly one such depot per inner London borough.  Which might actually be possible.  Outside that area distances are greater but so are traffic speeds.

 

So the idea would be - summon one from the nearest depot to collect you, go to where you want to be, then it parks itself in the nearest depot to that?

 

One question is, they'd surely have to redistribute themselves back to the home depot, or else they'd end up in the wrong places...but I suppose that could be done outside the rush hours, as long as the depots are large enough not to run out during peak times (and that's an issue I can't work out - just how much capacity would be required in these multi-story carparks?).

 

But what I don't get, is why, then, this doesn't already happen with human-driven taxis?  Why do those taxis instead wait on public streets or cruise around looking for custom?  Why doesn't Uber already work like that?

 

  Your argument would be, I guess, then, that the labour cost of the human driver makes taxis too expensive to achieve the necessary critical mass?

 

I dunno... I'm not convinced that the things will work on a technical level (the actual driving part), nor that the people who currently choose to drive 1 mile to buy a paper (and a huge proportion of urban car trips are a mile or so) would rather wait 10 minutes for a self-driving taxi to turn up and take them there.  In many cases they could walk there in hardly any more time than you are envisaging them waiting for a self-driving taxi.  If they were that patient, would they really be driving to begin with?

Uber sort of does work like that. A lot of drivers will simply log off and return home when work is scarce, once demand picks up more drivers make themselves available.

The situation I described where a privately owned car would drive to a depot and then return may never happen. We may just make the jump to driverless taxis abandoning private ownership all together.

If it does happen it will probably require some increase in off road parking capacity to be built but I imagine a lot of supermarkets etc would be happy to monetise their excess capacity overnight and at off peak times.

Privately owned driverless cars might have a waiting time as you described, this won't suit many people which is part of the reason that I think we might jump straight to driverless taxis.

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

Rich_cb wrote:

rkemb wrote:

How? They still have to be somewhere. They're either driving around, or parked. And driving around takes up more road space than parking...

This is only true if driverless cars result in there being far fewer cars in use than now, and it's not obvious that that is the outcome. Car sharing schemes have failed to make any significant dent in car ownership, and assuming that autonomous vehicles will is not a "most basic level" step.

On street parking won't be needed as cars can simply go and park themselves elsewhere. A car driving for 10 minutes to an off road parking facility uses up a piece of road for 10 minutes. A car parked on the road uses up a piece of road for hours/days/weeks until the car is driven next. As most cars are parked for 95% of the time the amount of street space freed up by that one change will be huge. Driverless taxis will also massively reduce second car ownership, freeing up more space, and eventually, imho, virtually eradicate private car ownership.

 

Just running with this for the moment, because while I'm unconvinced any of this will ever happen, it's interesting to try and imagine how it would work in an ideal case.  No longer storing cars in throughfares would certainly be a huge improvement.

 

If you say 10 minutes, then, given current speeds are about 10mph on average in rush hour in inner London, that would imply you'd want large (multi-storey?) parking for these self-driving-taxis such that they are within two miles of any point where someone would want one,.

To be fair that's actually not as mad as I first thought, as I think, if I have this right, it works out as very roughly one such depot per inner London borough.  Which might actually be possible.  Outside that area distances are greater but so are traffic speeds.

 

So the idea would be - summon one from the nearest depot to collect you, go to where you want to be, then it parks itself in the nearest depot to that?

 

One question is, they'd surely have to redistribute themselves back to the home depot, or else they'd end up in the wrong places...but I suppose that could be done outside the rush hours, as long as the depots are large enough not to run out during peak times (and that's an issue I can't work out - just how much capacity would be required in these multi-story carparks?).

 

But what I don't get, is why, then, this doesn't already happen with human-driven taxis?  Why do those taxis instead wait on public streets or cruise around looking for custom?  Why doesn't Uber already work like that?

 

  Your argument would be, I guess, then, that the labour cost of the human driver makes taxis too expensive to achieve the necessary critical mass?

 

I dunno... I'm not convinced that the things will work on a technical level (the actual driving part), nor that the people who currently choose to drive 1 mile to buy a paper (and a huge proportion of urban car trips are a mile or so) would rather wait 10 minutes for a self-driving taxi to turn up and take them there.  In many cases they could walk there in hardly any more time than you are envisaging them waiting for a self-driving taxi.  If they were that patient, would they really be driving to begin with?

One reason that this doesn't happen now is the cost of existing multi-story inner-city car parks. It is too expensive for the taxis to wait in these locations. If the robocars have to use such premium secure space too I am not sure that they could ever be cheap as have been implied.

PRSboy wrote:

I don't get this fixation with driverless cars.  What's the advantage.  It is still a car on the road, regardless of whether it has a driver or not.

I've gone on about it several times already, so should probably give it a reast.  But I am entirely unconvinced they'll ever work, or, if they do work, that they won't do more harm than good.

Note that the uber one that killed a pedestrian recently turns out to have had its sensor sensitivity set too low, so thought the person it detected in the road wasn't significant enough to stop for.

What if it turns out that's an unavoidable trade-off ?  If the choice turns out to be either stop for every plastic bag blowing across the street and so delay the paying customer, or occasionally drive into people?  Which will the car-markers choose?  And before answering, bear in mind how those car makers chose to deal with the trade off between higher (illegal) emissions poisoining the general public, and reducing the car's performance and upsetting the car's purchaser.

We need fewer cars being used less, not driverless ones.

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

PRSboy wrote:

I don't get this fixation with driverless cars.  What's the advantage.  It is still a car on the road, regardless of whether it has a driver or not.

 

I've gone on about it several times already, so should probably give it a reast.  But I am entirely unconvinced they'll ever work, or, if they do work, that they won't do more harm than good.

 

Note that the uber one that killed a pedestrian recently turns out to have had its sensor sensitivity set too low, so thought the person it detected in the road wasn't significant enough to stop for.

What if it turns out that's an unavoidable trade-off ?  If the choice turns out to be either stop for every plastic bag blowing across the street and so delay the paying customer, or occasionally drive into people?  Which will the car-markers choose?  And before answering, bear in mind how those car makers chose to deal with the trade off between higher (illegal) emissions poisoining the general public, and reducing the car's performance and upsetting the car's purchaser.

 

We need fewer cars being used less, not driverless ones.

Asking "Which will the car-makers choose?" is the wrong question. The real question is "Which will we as a society in general choose?" The answer is even more worrying. 

Bmblbzzz wrote:

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

PRSboy wrote:

I don't get this fixation with driverless cars.  What's the advantage.  It is still a car on the road, regardless of whether it has a driver or not.

 

I've gone on about it several times already, so should probably give it a reast.  But I am entirely unconvinced they'll ever work, or, if they do work, that they won't do more harm than good.

 

Note that the uber one that killed a pedestrian recently turns out to have had its sensor sensitivity set too low, so thought the person it detected in the road wasn't significant enough to stop for.

What if it turns out that's an unavoidable trade-off ?  If the choice turns out to be either stop for every plastic bag blowing across the street and so delay the paying customer, or occasionally drive into people?  Which will the car-markers choose?  And before answering, bear in mind how those car makers chose to deal with the trade off between higher (illegal) emissions poisoining the general public, and reducing the car's performance and upsetting the car's purchaser.

 

We need fewer cars being used less, not driverless ones.

Asking "Which will the car-makers choose?" is the wrong question. The real question is "Which will we as a society in general choose?" The answer is even more worrying. 

In fairness, I imagine the scanners and sensors will get much better, together with improvements in AI.  As an optimist I have the view that autonomous cars may get into less dangerous situations in the first place as they are not potentially operated by a moron.

The fact is that the current system of driver licensing is flawed, tolerating everyday incompetence as a trade off for general mobility.  Similarly, the architects and users of the transport network tolerate injury and death as a trade off for convenience and cost.

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

I've gone on about it several times already, so should probably give it a reast.  But I am entirely unconvinced they'll ever work, or, if they do work, that they won't do more harm than good.

 

Note that the uber one that killed a pedestrian recently turns out to have had its sensor sensitivity set too low, so thought the person it detected in the road wasn't significant enough to stop for.

What if it turns out that's an unavoidable trade-off ?  If the choice turns out to be either stop for every plastic bag blowing across the street and so delay the paying customer, or occasionally drive into people?  Which will the car-markers choose?  And before answering, bear in mind how those car makers chose to deal with the trade off between higher (illegal) emissions poisoining the general public, and reducing the car's performance and upsetting the car's purchaser.

 

We need fewer cars being used less, not driverless ones.

The robocars aren't going to need to attain zero casualties. The robocars just need to persuade those in power they are less deadly than the incompetent humans driving death cages.

PRSboy wrote:

I don't get this fixation with driverless cars.  What's the advantage.  It is still a car on the road doing a journey for a limited number of occupants, regardless of whether it has a driver or not.   

At the most basic level driverless cars will eliminate the need for on street parking, freeing up plenty of space for wider pavements and cycling infrastructure.

They will also hugely reduce the cost of taxi hire meaning that many people will simply opt out of private car ownership altogether.

This will again reduce the numbers of cars parked but will also reduce the overall number of journeys.