Ride-hailing in Metro Vancouver: Uber, Lyft, Sidecar - emerging technologies

[jollyburger]

None of this has anything to do with ride hailing in Vancouver.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by logan5

Where are you getting literally hundreds of thousands? A busy bus serves about a hundred passengers per hour, so what you re saying is that it would take a hundred driverless taxis to match that? No way.

It's going to take a lot closer to a hundred than to 1, because everything has to be sized to work for the rush hour crunches. You're not going to get much more than a couple of trips from the suburbs to downtown out of an autonomous vehicle during the morning rush because congestion and the need for the return trip, and the same is true of the evening rush.

I strongly suspect that one of the biggest roles for autonomous taxis will be to cover the "last mile" between the origin/destination of a commuter's trip and the transit system. But I think it's incredibly naive to think that they can replace the transit system entirely.

[logan5]

I said buses, not the entire transit system.

Transit mode share in Metro Vancouver is around 12%, so you wouldn't need a huge increase in road capacity to absorb those passengers. And when we are talking about trips to a Skytrain station, those trips are not very long.

Further into the future though, when most vehicles are autonomous, there will be huge gains in road capacity. Most likely enough to replace the entire transit system.

[logan5]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

None of this has anything to do with ride hailing in Vancouver.

Quite true. It's more "emerging technologies".

[Migrant_Coconut]

Uh, you don't reduce traffic by adding traffic. That's tar sands logic. Best case is that you prolong the inevitable by ~20 years, at which point induced demand catches up and you're back to square one.

More to the point, TransLink pre-lockdown saw about 740k boardings a day; that's anywhere from 124-370k Origins (depending on passenger load). Best of luck trying to fit all those new cars on the road AND lower congestion.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

it would be ignorance to not think that self driving cars wont impact transit use. since it'll make trips much cheaper due to not having a driver and lower maintenance costs as most will be electric.

the question is how much of an impact will this have? it'll probably be a decent impact on feeder bus routes, but over the entire system including SkyTrain it probably will only have a minor impact really.

i could see it leading to more traffic. i firmly believe that once electric cars really come down in price that people will start going back to cars. from the people i know, the only reason they don't have a car is because of purchase price and maintenance costs. electric gets rid of one, and the other is starting to come to.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by logan5

Transit mode share in Metro Vancouver is around 12%, so you wouldn't need a huge increase in road capacity to absorb those passengers.

When you're on the edge of gridlock it takes precious little to push you over the edge.

Further into the future though, when most vehicles are autonomous, there will be huge gains in road capacity. Most likely enough to replace the entire transit system.

Huh? Where are these gains going to come from? You sound like the wishful thinkers that believe self-driving cars are going to somehow magically form convoys and avoid having to stop at red lights. If that happens it'll be way far in the future when manually driven cars, bicycles and pedestrians have been banned from the roads. Good luck trying to make that happen...

[logan5]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

When you're on the edge of gridlock it takes precious little to push you over the edge.

Huh? Where are these gains going to come from? You sound like the wishful thinkers that believe self-driving cars are going to somehow magically form convoys and avoid having to stop at red lights. If that happens it'll be way far in the future when manually driven cars, bicycles and pedestrians have been banned from the roads. Good luck trying to make that happen...

It's not magic. Truck platooning is a real world thing. It allows the trucks to follow closely together. The same technology, or a better technology, will certainly be used in autonomous vehicles.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by logan5

It's not magic. Truck platooning is a real world thing. It allows the trucks to follow closely together. The same technology, or a better technology, will certainly be used in autonomous vehicles.

If you've ever watched footage of autonomous vehicles in action, you'll see that they behave much more cautiously than human drivers. This is because they actually follow the rules of the road, they don't tailgate, they don't speed, and they don't make snap assumptions about what's going to happen. As long as the driving space is shared with manually driven cars, with cyclists, and with pedestrians who can pop out suddenly from between two parked cars, don't hold your breath on autonomous vehicles making any magical gains in terms of road capacity. Indeed, their adherence to traffic laws will make things worse for quite some time.

[Tvisforme]

Originally Posted by logan5

It's not magic. Truck platooning is a real world thing. It allows the trucks to follow closely together. The same technology, or a better technology, will certainly be used in autonomous vehicles.

Yes, but it is more likely to start with freeway driving, not city driving. In addition, why would you want to replace efficient large-capacity people movers with limited-capacity ones? It makes no sense to have hundreds or thousands of small vehicles flowing back and forth from the suburbs (or even along main roads in the cities) just to avoid having to walk a few blocks from the drop-off locations. When automated trucks are permitted, do you really think that large trucks will all go away in favour of thousands of small delivery vans?

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

If you've ever watched footage of autonomous vehicles in action, you'll see that they behave much more cautiously than human drivers. This is because they actually follow the rules of the road, they don't tailgate, they don't speed, and they don't make snap assumptions about what's going to happen. As long as the driving space is shared with manually driven cars, with cyclists, and with pedestrians who can pop out suddenly from between two parked cars, don't hold your breath on autonomous vehicles making any magical gains in terms of road capacity. Indeed, their adherence to traffic laws will make things worse for quite some time.

With intersections, signals and shared roadspace, AVs should be able to minimize phantom jams... aaaand that's about all they can do without any further changes.

[libtard]

Wow this forum never ceases to amaze me. High rises and public transit. Bring up anything that threatens these 2 things and you’ll be met by a ravenous mob denouncing their existence. Now we’ve got people arguing AGAINST autonomous vehicles too funny

[chowhou]

Maybe I'm crazy, but isn't the logical step here to have autonomous busses, possibly with on-demand routing like the Bowen Island pilot project?

Not trying to attack bus drivers, that's good honest work, but the amount of money that could be saved by automating that job would make busses seriously competitive.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by libtard

Wow this forum never ceases to amaze me. High rises and public transit. Bring up anything that threatens these 2 things and you’ll be met by a ravenous mob denouncing their existence. Now we’ve got people arguing AGAINST autonomous vehicles too funny

The redpills are siding with Musk fanboys and the MSM on this one? Interesting.

Originally Posted by chowhou

Maybe I'm crazy, but isn't the logical step here to have autonomous busses, possibly with on-demand routing like the Bowen Island pilot project?

Not trying to attack bus drivers, that's good honest work, but the amount of money that could be saved by automating that job would make busses seriously competitive.

Problem is, a driverless bus isn't exactly as easy as a driverless metro. Once we can automate all the other things drivers do (last-minute braking, waiting for stragglers, enforcing fares, etc etc etc), by all means.

Re: on-demand, the general rule of thumb is that if ridership is high enough to warrant a bus, you might as well have a fixed route.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Once we can automate all the other things drivers do (last-minute braking, waiting for stragglers, enforcing fares, etc etc etc), by all means.

When was the last time you saw an automatic elevator wait for stragglers?
When was the last time you saw a bus driver enforcing fares?

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

When was the last time you saw an automatic elevator wait for stragglers?
When was the last time you saw a bus driver enforcing fares?

Asking bus passengers to hold the door seems like a losing proposition for everybody.

A month or so before the lockdown. A computer can't pressure you to wear a mask, either... though in fairness, it's a bit less appalling when a deranged hobo kicks and spits on a computer.

[scottN]

I think that ride sharing technologies like Uber Pool (actual ride sharing, not just hailing a ride for youself) could go a long way to improve the efficiency of our road network by raising the average occupancy of vehicles. Local governments can encourage this by creating more HOV lanes. If there are enough HOV lanes, then a shared ride could actually be faster than a dedicated one. I don't think we are there yet, as the HOV lanes we currently have are limited to highway 1 and a few bridge approaches. This will be the tipping point - when shared transportation is fast than private transportation there will be many many adopters. A few cities in the US have even developed a "slugging" culture in response to the HOV lane incentives.

[casper]

Originally Posted by libtard

Wow this forum never ceases to amaze me. High rises and public transit. Bring up anything that threatens these 2 things and you’ll be met by a ravenous mob denouncing their existence. Now we’ve got people arguing AGAINST autonomous vehicles too funny

There are three camps on here:

1) Those we believe autonomous vehicles are not ready to make the leap from the track to road.

2) Those who think the economics don't work and

3) Those who think they are the devils work and society as we know it will come to an end if they are permitted to take over. (These people spent to much time watching Battlestar Gelactica in their youth).

I am in category 1 and can be persuaded either way on 2.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Asking bus passengers to hold the door seems like a losing proposition for everybody.

My point was that nobody expects automated systems to wait. If the self-driving bus pulls away as you're running up to it you're not going to hold a grudge against it.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

My point was that nobody expects automated systems to wait. If the self-driving bus pulls away as you're running up to it you're not going to hold a grudge against it.

don't bet on that. you KNOW there will be people who say there should be cameras etc to detect that.