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Week 3 [20.03-26.03.2017] Driverless world

Driverless world

I think that most of us have struggled with traffic in Warsaw. I don’t know how it works, but there are places where we can observe traffic almost all the time.
We all have heard about driverless cars. There are obviously pros and cons of this idea which has been discussed many times.
I would like to show you a short movie presenting what a driverless world would look like. 



I think that it’s actually a great idea. As always – there could be some disadvantages of this kind of solution like a huge amount of money and time necessary to make the world driverless, but in my opinion it is worth implementing.

Do you see more disadvantages or advantages?
How much time would it take to implement such a solution? Will we be able to see it?

Please feel free to share your opinions and ideas
J


Comments

Unknown said…
This is a great vision, but I think we'll have to wait long for implementation this solutions and for technological development in transport. In Warsaw I don't have a car and I'm moving in public transport. I think that at this moment a good solution to avoid traffic jams is to encourage citizens to use public transport, for example: newer vehicles, more connections, cheaper tickets, no delays. I think the state should invest in comfortable public transport. This would not only solve the problem of traffic jams, but also pollution.
Unknown said…
As you said Sylwia, there are some pros and cons of driverless world. With no doubt, there are a lot of advantages but I'm not sure if now they are stronger than disadvantages, but I'm convinced we are not prepared for such big change.

First of all, autonomous cars will make there will be less accidents. We all know that human is the most vulnerable factor in most processes. The same is with driving a car. Our focus, speed reaction etc. depends on a day. Computers are less dependent.

Secondly, autonomous cars will reduce traffic jams. It's possible thanks to connecting devices and sharing information. Cars could be able to connect e.g. with traffic lights or even each other. Then they could not to stop e.g. on intersections.

On the other hand, driverless world is associated with unemployment. There are approximately 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the United States. I don't know how much there are in Poland, but these people - all over the world - would lose their (well, not so comfortable and well-paid, but stil) jobs. We are not prepared for it, but in my opinion we try to do it.

To sum up, from logical point of view there are much more pros than cons, but such big change takes time. I don't know how much, but I think not as much as we all think. I'm sure it will help in many, many, many fields, but at the same time receive me the joy of driving :( :p Unfortunately it is still too weak argument :(
Sylwia Pechcin said…
I agree with you. But unfortunately people like to have this comfort to arrive at the door their's destination and public transport doesn't give us such a comfort. And another reason of avoiding public transport is a fact that it's very hard to transport some baggage or some bigger stuff. Especially when it's crowdy.
Sylwia Pechcin said…
Yeah, it's too weak argument in fact ;)
Speaking about unemployment - there are a lot of jobs connected with driving beyond truck drivers. For example the whole taxi business will fall. No one will use taxi, while they can "drive" after alcohol.
Unknown said…
But it would be much easier for restaurants, witch need someone to deliver food - in my hometown there is a great problem with it, and if there were driverless cars anyone could deliver a food
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
I don't see any serious disadvantages of making cars driverless, except losing the joy of driving and possible drivers unemployment crysis. Driver job can and should be automated, people don't have to stare at the road for up to 12 hours and it's simply dangerous. I think that driverless world would have fewer road accidents, faster and cheaper delivery, effective logistics and a lot of other improvements.
Unknown said…
Yeah, sure
I fully agree that this problem is connected not only with truck drivers. I also thought about it.

I found short video about truck driver's problem
https://www.facebook.com/TheEconomist/videos/10155213167719060/

so not only we, but also the economist thinks about driverless world :D
I think that driverless traffic is inevitable in long term. However, i think that we should focus on better public transport and improving quality and omount of bike paths, since it is way cheaper and would make great difference while we wait for driverless cars. Of course it would be great to have them now, but I think it is a bit early to talk about them taking over roads.
Unknown said…
Advantages:
1. Without the need for a driver, cars could become mini-leisure rooms. There would be more space and no need for everyone to face forwards. Entertainment technology, such as video screens, could be used to lighten long journeys without the concern of distracting the driver.
2. Over 80% of car crashes in the USA are caused by driver error. There would be no bad drivers and less mistakes on the roads, if all vehicles became driverless. Drunk and drugged drivers would also be a thing of the past.
3. Travelers would be able to journey overnight and sleep for the duration.
4. Traffic could be coordinated more easily in urban areas to prevent long tailbacks at busy times.

Disadvantages:
1. Driverless cars would likely be out of the price range of most ordinary people when generally introduced, likely costing over $100,000.
2. Truck drivers and taxi drivers will lose their jobs, as autonomous vehicles take over.
3. A computer malfunction, even just a minor glitch, could cause worse crashes than anything that human error might bring about.
4. If the car crashes, without a driver, who's fault is it: Google/the software designer, or the owner of the vehicle?
While I really like and support the idea of driverless cars, in my opinion the vision presented in the video is too far-fetched.
Firstly, it is not valid to compare traffic to blood system. Regarding the latter, the direction of the flow of blood is predictable and blood cells are in general collision-insensitive.
Secondly, the current road network infrastructure is developed for decades, but we still have the same problems we can’t deal with once and for all (e.g. painting road markings, potholes, width of the roads). It is much simpler to fix these than to build very complex 3D traffic network, however these problems still exist.
Another complication is money - the costs of such solution would be enormous, not only for budgets of countries but also for individual drivers.
That’s why I don’t believe we will see fully functional 3D transportation networks in next few decades. For the moment, probably “traditional” self-driving cars systems will be developed (like Tesla’s or Google’s). I personally keep my fingers crossed for them as there is still much room for improvement.
Unknown said…
I think that this vision is nice and I like the idea itself, but implementing this for real? It will take a lot of money and time and it is very very complex. I think that we will rather not make it real. At least not in the near future. There are also some problems about how to deal with accidents: who is responsible when one occurs? And what about people who live from driving? Truck, taxi, delivery drivers ? Also I think we still need some time to develop technical solutions to build machines which we can fully trust, that it will safely take us to our destination, without any control and interference of a human.
I think that someday in the future driverless cars will dominate our streets.
It might happen even sooner than we expect.
Driverless cars have lots of advantages, but the biggest disadvantage of them is the lack of joy when you drive a car.
Sometimes I like to drive a car not to get somewhere else but to feel the joy of driving.
Another disadvantage may be that a lot of people would loose jobs in transport industry.
For now it’s only hypothetical but it might become reality much sooner than we think.
I'm big fan of driverless cars and personally I'm looking forward to it happening, but at the same time I'm realistic, this won't happen anytime soon and it probably won't end good job-wise, because for sure all taxi/truck drivers will get a serious hit, regardless how we look at it.

Still, personally as somebody who appreciates a comfort of a taxi and not paying for unusual money, this is a miracle that I'm looking forward to happen.
Sylwia Pechcin said…
To be honest, when I have to drive through Warsaw it never brings me joy although I like driving my car... The traffic jam and these 'drivers' drive me crazy.
Sylwia Pechcin said…
I don't agree with your opinion that traffic is unpredictable. In this vision - every car could communicate with each other. In this way every car and even every traffic lights will 'know' what is going to happen in advance.
In my opinion, this is an intresting idea. However, I think it won't happen in our lifetime. Like people said before - I'm also wondering about people who are taxi or truck drivers - they will defnitly lose their jobs. And also - If we lived in driverless world, people, who just enjoy to drive, would lose their passion/hobby.
Unknown said…
I like the idea of driverless cars. It has many advantages like said improved traffic flow and less accidents. Many cons as well. Aside from pros and cons, I like to drive my car. I like even more to ride a motorcycle. And it's not a matter of getting from point A to point B. I just enjoy it. Not necessarily in a city like Warsaw but on a country road for example. And I think there are many people like me. Who just enjoy the ride/drive. Those people will not give up their enjoyment easily ;) The thing about driverless cars is that we either go fully driverless or not at all. Anyway, not happening anytime soon.
Sorry that I will not be much enthusiast about it, but for this to work it would have to be a global solution. Maybe in London or Berlin, there might be a way of running a test drive of closed public transport this way - where you could use a car just for a quick drive from one place to another (like an auto taxi). There is one more concern I am really afraid of. I am a realist - sorry but please do not write that we should use public transport more so we could avoid traffic. Public transport has one main problem - it is public and mainly most of people do not take care about it. That is why almost every time you can see that someone is eating kebab on the bus and doesn't mind that whole place is going to smell, kids that is drawing something on the seat and glass of the bus and mother of it completely doesn't care about it or in the corner someone is drinking beer and spilling it all over a place - that is what we can see everyday. On the Flu season - riding a bus a lot gives you 100 % that in few days you will also be sick. To point something out, look at Veturilo - the idea was great - but how many times have you taken a bike that was dirty, damaged, or there was lot of trash in the bin. That are many reasons why so many people are not using public transport and might also not want to use electric auto drive taxis like Google has already offered.
Unknown said…
I'm in two minds about whole thing. The optimistic part of me thought: Wow, what an incredible noble idea! The sarcastic part noticed: Did he watched too much Flintstons...? The realistic part decided: Yes, let's do it. We definately should start that project, even though I'm not convinced we would solve traffic problems instead of creating even more crowded city in all tree dimensions. Moreover, I'm convinced the agglomerations won't be able to afford it. However, these obstacles won't stop me from wanting to have this sollution implemented. That would be a totally new, exciting world.
Unknown said…
I thing it would be hard to introduce driverless world, because you can't connected two completely different systems: humans and robots. Humans work under the influence of impulse and makes unpredictable things and robots cannot be prepared on every situations. The only one solution is to make computer only roads, where everything will be under control of powerful algorithms.
Driverless cars have so much potential. They could remove problems with breaking law by drivers, because car will be keeping to all sings etc. But this is a very very far future, because it depends on many things. One is technology which is in really good status. We have now a kinda driverless cars and they are working really fine, when we looking that's a beginning for this technology. Second thing are drivers habits and it will be hard to change people mind to let cars drive by themselves, because many people like driving a car. Third and most important thing is that it will be all based on some kind of program and as an it we know that there is no software that can't be hacked or doesn't have any bugs or issues with working and so it is the main cause that fully driverless car will not exist for a long time from now.
Unknown said…
There are definitely a lot of advantages in driverless cars. A lot of road accidents take place because of people's mistakes or luck of attention. Every person can be tired or be distracted with some noise, but robotic cars won't do this. I'm pretty sure that this innovation will change the world to the better. On the other hand, I can hardly imagine how to implement those cars in our everyday lives. This seems unreal for now. How to replace all cars? I don't think that driverless cars can normally communicate with regular cars and regular drivers. It should be some kind of industrial revolution to implement this innovation.
I think that automated cars without a driver, this not so distant future , for example they are already being tested in some US States , furthermore the company's production of cars do the same , then there is no 1 product of Google , and Yes indeed if you replace all conventional cars it would solve a lot of problems like traffic jams and a large number of car accidents.
KamilG said…
I find ideas presented in film very useful, but personally I think it can take many years before we'll be able to see them on our streets. For me the most interesting is the concept about buses. I would like to point out that future solutions are important but some current ones implemented are working quite well. I would like to present Helsinki - the capital city of Finland where government announced the transformation current public transport system into comprehensive, point-to-point "mobility on demand" one will be done in 2025. It would make the city less jam-packed and more friendly for habitants. They have plan to create Kutsuplus - city minibus which would drive on demand to specified pick-up points and destinations. A new app in testing now lets citizens instantly call up a shared bike, car, or taxi, or find the nearest bus or train. Last time many cities are going to be car-free ones and I must admit that this idea seems the best for me. Streets should be for pedestrians, not for cars.
Michał Pycek said…
I would never like the idea of giving up driving by myself :-) I simply love it and relax while doing it.
In my opinion the advantage of this idea is that we overcome various limits of technology by improving, exploring and developing it, however the disadvantage is that it may be also dangerous and boring if it became our new reality.
Magdalena Popek said…
Have you heard about a trap for a driverless car? https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/17/laying-a-trap-for-self-driving-cars/
I believe self driving cars are the future. No drunk, tired, mad or inexperiended drivers, much less accidents. You can travel much greater distances at once as you don't have to stop to rest or take a nap.
Vyvyan said…
I think that the idea is pretty awesome, but we will never be ready for that.
Personally, I won't trust machine so easily to let it drive. Just no. I prefer to do that by myself.
They will have "in mind" powerful algorithms, and, as humans, we can't do perfect algorithms. We are making mistakes and this machines will do that too.
But, as a programmed machines, they will not break the law :D. Or be tired or drunk.
I think this idea is amazing! I can't wait to see it happen. With technology we all have today it is just a matter of time. I don't really know how long would it take for cities to adapt and how much would it cost but I am really looking forward to it. I can't really think about cons right now because all I see are pros. Less accidents and no more drunk drivers. Awesome idea.
Wojtek Kania said…
I think that this idea is very good, but it never comes true. Technology makes our world "smaller". We can talk with anyone in the world in a few seconds. But a face to face meeting is necessary in a business. And cars is necessary in our world for traveling, business and many many more. In my opinion we should think how our cars would be more eco and how to build roads.
Bartosz Łyżwa said…
What a great idea to reduce cars amount on the roads. I'm fully suprised how much space we are wasting now. I've never thought about it when I've been driving to work for example. I can't find any cons of this project and I hope I'll see driverless cars in nearby future :)
Unknown said…
Concept sounds good but I love to drive a car so I won't use it :)
I use car everyday and driving in Warsaw is fine, of course at 4-5 p.m there is a traffic but on the other hand - show me other big city without traffic at this time.

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