@docpop You know what's the most surprising thing? That these cars don't have giant bright-as-the-sun billboards on top of them. Only a matter of time, I guess.

@docpop if l/when real self driving comes to consumer vehicles, I want this. Parking in the city is one of the main things I hate about driving to SF, that and it always seems just too congested.

Hop out, and have the car stick itself somewhere or nowhere. I don’t care. If I have to park it, I have to hope for someplace close to wherever I want, there never is.

@docpop I thought they were still awaiting approval to take passengers on the fully driverless cars en masse? Aren’t these still participating in the trial program?

@docpop
Is it cheaper to keep a car always moving than it is to park it?

That's... shocking.

@docpop we’ve solved the problem of commuter cars having 1/5 passengers, by making cars with 0/5 passengers! Now that’s progress.

@docpop @jwz Municipalities can easily solve this by imposing a tax on empty vehicles operating on the public right of way.

@docpop History repeating. Remember why we used to consistently enforce taxi regulations like making the damn things get a limited number of medallions? Because taxis take up space when they're empty, too...

@docpop reading and watching this, I can't help but see these empty SDVs as inflammatory mediators coursing through arteries, triggering clots and chronic dysfunction.

Tonight I spent one hour at the corner of Cesar Chavez & Guerrero St counting driverless cars.

Between 5-6pm, I counted 27 driverless cars, but only 1 appeared to have a passenger.

During rush hour in #SanFrancisco, 96% of the Waymos, Cruises, and Xoops on this busy street were empty!

edit: driverless cars can operate 24/7 in SF, but I've been informed that some are only taking passengers during certain hours (ie 9pm-5am). So the cars I saw today were probably not accepting any paid rides.

@docpop @jwz Driverless cars add to congestion.

Driver owned (and parked) cars use up valuable space in cities that could be used for business or housing.

The answer isn’t driverless cars. It’s mass transportation.

@docpop Years ago (when self/remote-driving was a distant dream) I made some calculations and even then it was cheaper to have car moving (even accounting wear, not only gas) than paying for parking.
Would congestion fee solve it?

@docpop there’s no way the mileage costs less than parking. Even if it was $20 an hour. Parking cost cant be the only driver, maybe they use it for more data too?

@docpop and the city veins will stuck

@docpop Why haven't these guys burned through their cash yet?

@docpop
"You need to use our driverless cars because there's too much traffic on the road...due to our driverless cars"

@docpop

Not sure if this sounds like bicycle paradise in the making: Given what a law abiding car in Germany does to the usual road rage style of human drivers, they could indeed tame the traffic just by congesting the fighting cage that is called street.

@lisamelton @docpop But doesn't that kinda waste energy though? So they'd end up having to pay for the energy to keep the deadheading thing going?

@docpop Next step is autonomous sleeper cars that roll quietly through the streets all night, people asleep inside, in cities that won’t build housing

My city uses Shoup parking prices — it’s set at the lowest price that means you can expect an empty spot on each block.

Empty cars should pay the parking price for the blocks they’re on, parked or moving. It certainly shouldn’t be cheaper to thicken traffic.

@docpop

@docpop Are they battery operated or is this just a waste of fuel?

@docpop are we certain this is the most efficient way of organising society?

@docpop

What a waste of energy this planet can ill afford.

@docpop if cities are serious about improving public transport availability and/or reducing the overall number of cars on the road then they should be subsidising parking bays for companies like these (car share services included).

@docpop """self driving cars will finally fix traffic"""

Just one more technology upgrade bro, it will work this time. Cars aren't inefficient, just believe me bro.

@docpop I'll be dead before I see a self-driving car here in West Virginia. There are still no EVs here except for a Rivian pickup I saw a couple months ago.

@docpop The driverless car companies will be able to inflate the adoption rate of driverless by not leaving any room on the road for cars with drivers. Genius!

@docpop@mastodon.social
What a waste of energy ​:otter_shock:​
@framasky@framapiaf.org

@docpop if it is Taxi, then up to 50% of empty car can be quite normal (picking up passengers) and then returning.

It will be less only in city centers.

@docpop my assumption is that:
- they are collecting traffic data, so the rationale is, rather than wasting money and do nothing at the parking lot, let's just get them working 24/7
- they don't share the data amongst those car companies, maybe we're going to see more and more of them clogging the streets if other car companies are joining in

@docpop but don't these cars have to get to wherever their passenger is waiting for them? They can't just materialize at the place they are needed.

@docpop @lisamelton Bonkers.

@docpop seems pretty minimal that reporting this sort of data to the city should be required.

@docpop That's why we love USA. Not! #USHegemony

@docpop horeseless headless horsemann

@docpop There was an airliner once that flew empty from Stansted to Cambridge each evening and then back to Stansted in the morning. Because, we were told, the fuel to do this - never mind the carbon cost! - was cheaper than the parking at Stansted.

@docpop Imagine being stuck in traffic with cars but no people. Our future seems bright.

@docpop so...also creating more traffic in order to encourage people to take these cars instead? $$$

@docpop if I recall correctly "driving around to avoid parking fees" was a factor in the congestion charge for London. People were driving to London and paying someone to drive around because paying driver+gas was cheaper than parking fees.

@docpop Ugh, this shouldn't surprise me, but ugh...

@docpop wow!! thought self driving cars still needed a driver in them, just in case, have we evolved beyond that now?

@docpop considering how stressful traffic in SF is (to me as a German, who has only ever been chauffeured around by friends or Lyft) it feels especially insidious to have these fleets adding additional unnecessary (and potentially unsafe) traffic? Yikes :o

@docpop @isotopp For comparison. How many Taxis/Ubers did you count that had only the driver in the vehicle?
Also generating driving test data could be useful for a self driving program even without passengers. This might not be about parking. The cars also might move to a location where they expect passengers. I have a hard time imagining that fuel and wear are cheaper than paying for parking.

@docpop I have never seen a self driving car in real life. Maybe I'm a country bumpkin🤔.

@docpop
Long may this pestilence stay away from our shores. We have enough trouble from lobotomised human drivers

@docpop this sounds very dystopian in itself

@docpop This is so harmful for the environment! We ought to have laws regarding this.

@docpop On the flip side, more miles driven means more experience, potentially

@docpop omg self driving cars are on the road is usa. that's terrifying.

@docpop Deadheading is also an airline industry term for moving crew required elsewhere as non-revenue passengers on regular flights. The same technique can be applied to buses and trains - a driver taking the bus and being issued a bus card for the purpose (as opposed to as a perquisite) would also be deadheading.

@docpop seems like an untapped revenue opportunity for the city. Audit the car data on a regular basis. Charge parking rates for time when no one is in the car. Bet that gets those empty cars off the streets

@docpop if I were a lawmaker there, I’d advocate for a policy that mandates driverless cars must park within ten minutes of discharging a passenger, unless another rider is awaiting pickup.

@docpop I've never seen one.

@docpop isn't this whole thing extremely wasteful? I've been reading the comments and everyone seems to agree with just throwing empty cars onto the roads 24/7, wasn't the whole point of electric cars to be "green" and "eco friendly?"

I know these are taxis, but having them roaming after hours seems like a total waste

@docpop @AnnaAnthro Isn’t there a movement to put something on those cars’ hood (a traffic cone, whatever), as that automatically gets them to stop? Which makes them become a nuisance, blocking traffic, so they need to get towed? Something like that?

@docpop welcome in the future

@docpop I think that actually most cars are driverless, even if there’s a person sitting in the driver’s seat. 😏

@docpop I just want to see a driverless car. That may never happen since I live in FL.

@docpop
That should be illegal. Waste of gas. And that law, targeted at everyone, is likely to only impact a few tech firms that could afford the parking. Maybe the lots they buy will have to be in the suburbs, and the cars will travel from the perimeter into the city & not from expensive city lots outward. & if they have all this data, they could be sending cars into a place they will be called to 20 minutes before they are even requested. Lots of extra parking near unused big box stores.

@docpop Fuel / energy is still too cheap.

@docpop
"Deadheading" should be illegal for some obvious, practical reasons.

@docpop It is too complicated to write it off as purely to save money on parking. It could be rebalancing the cars from popular drop off areas to popular pickup areas to minimize delays. The same way you’ll often have many empty buses on return trips during rush hour.

@docpop
I was just in #SanFrancisco and noticed this. There were a bunch of them with people in em- but certainly others driving around advertising the service. They were everywhere in the Mission District!
I was so struck seeing these I had to snap some photos. You can see the infrared coming off the cameras in the photo.
Why care about increased #traffic or energy #consumption when you can never pay for parking and advertise your service through "deadheading"!?
#selfdriving
@AasaMariaHedberg

@docpop I've never seen a self driving car in my life. Are they just not in Australia yet?

@docpop perhaps Singapore is on to something. They are planning to charge road tax based on number of km driven.

@docpop Automating traffic. Those silicon valley geniuses have done it again.

@docpop @AliceMarshall once again, driverless cars shown up as utterly pointless technology

@docpop @stevesilberman What do you think of the term being co-opted by tech bros for such a wasteful practice that ought to be replaced by effective public transportation?

@docpop This is hilarious!🤡 In Europe we move in the direction of being charged for even entering some parts of the city. Then people that don’t need to go there with a car won’t go there. But then, Europe is not designed with car first mentality…🤷🏻‍♂️

@docpop “Why pay for parking when you can burn fossil fuels indefinitely?”

@docpop With an additional advantage that the system keeps learning from newly encountered situations?