The program, called the Bloomberg Aspen Initiative on Cities and Autonomous Vehicles, includes Nashville, Austin, Los Angeles, Paris and Buenos Aires, along with five other cities to be added this year. The cities will have access to data and coaching from urban planners and technologists meant to help them prepare for self-driving cars and use them to address city challenges.
... "This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for cities to address some of their most challenging issues, from pedestrian safety to carbon reduction to economic mobility," said James Anderson, who leads the government innovation program at Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Automation is poised to transform the labor economy as some workers are replaced by robots. Dense urban centers are likely to be served by roving driverless cars that work for ride-hailing services. And smarter vehicles that can communicate with one another may lead to reductions in congestion and car crashes.
How Will Self-Driving Cars Change Cities?
... Goldman Sachs predicts North American auto sales could be almost 60 percent autonomous by 2030, divided between “limited self-driving” cars, which may require driver control during difficult conditions (like encountering highway maintenance) and “full self-driving” cars, which can drive alone in all situations.
... The Rocky Mountain Institute, a sustainability think tank in Boulder, Colorado, argues that AVs will quickly challenge the private ownership model. In a report released in September, RMI calculates that self-driving cars will make automated taxi service in cities as cheap, per mile, as personal vehicle ownership. Jon Walker, a manager at RMI and co-author of the report, anticipates that autonomous vehicles’ superior use of road space—optimal acceleration and spacing, for example—will unleash a wave of urban transformation. Even if the number of cars on the road doubled, he argues, traffic would still move faster.
Sharing the backseat with strangers could be a crucial factor in keeping traffic from exploding. One OECD study found that shared, autonomous cars in Lisbon—in combination with a good public transit system—could cause peak-hour traffic to fall by two-thirds.
Large numbers of streets could be decommissioned and reused as promenades, parks, and sites for housing. Most downtown parking could also become obsolete. The average car is parked 95 percent of the time, and parking spots are required, at great cost, in housing, retail, and office construction. San Francisco, to take a city not famous for car use, has 250,000 free, on-street parking spaces. Given what land is worth in San Francisco, that’s an unfathomable subsidy for private car ownership and an enormous waste of space.
Pedestrians walk freely in a world of self-driving cars
Imagine an urban neighborhood where most of the cars are self-driving. What would it be like to be a pedestrian?
In a new study published online Wednesday (Oct. 26) in the Journal of Planning Education and Research, Millard-Ball looks at the prospect of urban areas where a majority of vehicles are "autonomous" or self-driving. It's a phenomenon that's not as far off as one might think.
"Autonomous vehicles have the potential to transform travel behavior," Millard-Ball says. He uses game theory to analyze the interactions between pedestrians and self-driving vehicles, with a focus on yielding at crosswalks.
... "Pedestrians routinely play the game of chicken," Millard-Ball writes. Crossing the street, even at a marked crosswalk without a traffic signal, "requires an implicit, instantaneous probability calculation: what are the odds of survival?"
The benefit of crossing the street quickly, instead of taking a long detour or waiting for a gap in traffic, is traded off against the probability of injury or even death. Pedestrians know that drivers are not interested in running them down—usually. But there is the chance a driver may be distracted, drunk, or a sociopath.
Self-driving cars are programmed to obey the rules of the road, including waiting for pedestrians to cross. Secure in the knowledge that a car will yield, pedestrians merely need to act unpredictably or step into the street to force the risk-averse car to stop.
... "From the point of view of a passenger in an automated car, it would be like driving down a street filled with unaccompanied five-year-old children," Millard-Ball writes.
China issues roadmap for development of self-driving vehicle market
Oct 26 China has issued a long-term roadmap for the development of autonomous driving vehicles, with the aim to commercialise highly or fully autonomous driving vehicles by as early as 2021, an official body said on Wednesday.
The 450-page roadmap, issued by the official Society of Automotive Engineers of China, lays out the blueprint for the development of the industry until 2030.
Officials said earlier this year the draft would be released to set out technical standards, including a common language for cars to communicate with each other and regulatory guidelines.
Ford, Jaguar Land Rover Test Connected and Self-Driving Cars in UK
Ford and India’s Tata Motors, parent of Jaguar Land Rover, are testing cars in Britain that can “talk” to one another, drive themselves, skip red lights and even help locate a parking space.
The system, named Green Light Optimal Speed Advisory, has been engineered to minimize emissions and maximize fuel efficiency.
Michigan may boost penalties for hacking self-driving cars
... The Michigan Senate unanimously passed a pair of bills Thursday that would increase the penalties for interfering with the computer systems of autonomous, or self-driving, vehicles.
Currently, there is a 10-year sentence and $50,000 fine for anyone who tampers with the computer system of a driverless vehicle that results in injury. The new bill would increase the penalty to life in prison if the interference with the computer system resulted in death.
The law wouldn't apply to auto manufacturers or licensed mechanics who are servicing the car. If it's found that the tampering could be or was reversed without any injury to the car's owner could be subject to a misdemeanor charge carrying a 93-day jail sentence and a maximum fine of $500.
Army Tests Self-Driving Supply Trucks
Video - Otto and Budweiser: First Shipment by Self-Driving Truck
... The head of the Colorado Department of Transportation was in the overnight convoy early on October 20th, which wasn't publicized ahead of time.
"It was completely flawless,” said Shailen Bhatt, CDOT’s Executive Director. “It was one of the more exciting and boring things that I've ever done. I was in the 5th vehicle behind the truck and it's just like watching any other semi going down the road, except this one stayed right in the middle of its lane the whole, the whole way down.
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Knoxville mayor to consider self-driving car testing
KNOXVILLE (WATE) – Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero is exploring the possibility of the city becoming the next test site for connected and self-driving vehicles.
“We may have a unique opportunity to build a new industry right here in Knoxville led by companies like Gridsmart,” said Mayor Rogero in a statement. “While this is just a discussion, we’ll have the right people in the room to consider the viability of this opportunity.”
Gridsmart Founder and CEO Bill Malkes says the company’s intersection cameras could one day be used with self-driving cars.
“They’ll help the cars that are autonomous and have this technology be able to communicate and interface with cars who are still legacy and don’t have that,” said Malkes.
Right now the technology can be used with connected vehicles.
“In between autonomous vehicles and where we are today, there’s going to be connected vehicles and that’s where the vehicles talk to one another and talk to the infrastructure,” said Malkes. “We’re part of that infrastructure.”
Inside NVIDIA’s New Self-Driving Supercomputer Powering Tesla’s Autopilot