Will there be any changes in roads and highways for self-driving cars and trucks?
Is it safe to mix human-machine roads or separate them?
What changes would a road need in self-driving, not anything at all?
My speculation, the problem will be human behavior against machines, so that will need to separate human driving from self-driving, so the self-driving can be more efficient. Self-driving would be faster and efficient because the cars would be allowed to go faster, closer to other cars and group efficient, so will prevent any traffic formation, like this video does in example;
In urban areas, probably HOV highways lanes will turn for self-driving cars only lanes, same will happen to some tolled roads. Where any preference will be given to self-driving in the future. As for rural highways, extra lanes will be required to be built for self-driving exclusive. Regarding for the exit ramps, probably will require some special design or incorporate with the human lanes to prevent traffic to self-driving lanes.
Do you think this will be the future of roads?
What are your thoughts about this possibility in the future?
The human mind makes millions of decisions per minute, perhaps per second, while driving.
If a computer is made that only makes a mistake 0.01% of the time while driving at high speeds as outlines by CGP Grey, EVERYBODY will be killed in a fatal crash within a few months.
The future of self driving cars is, they are science fiction and will never exist.
Being that self-driven cars have been tested for a few years now on the same roads as humans, with most people not even realizing they are driving next to one, I would say nothing needs to be done.
Sure, feel free to point out the highly publicized death involving a truck, and a vehicle that turned in front of a bus. I'll gather up the news stories involving the other 35,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of accidents...at least those that made the news.
Quote from: SP Cook on March 07, 2017, 01:31:46 PM
The human mind makes millions of decisions per minute, perhaps per second, while driving.
If a computer is made that only makes a mistake 0.01% of the time while driving at high speeds as outlines by CGP Grey, EVERYBODY will be killed in a fatal crash within a few months.
The future of self driving cars is, they are science fiction and will never exist.
The human mind can coordinate only with traffic control devices and in a very limited way the car in front of yours and a few directly around you. A road with exclusively self-driven cars can coordinate with every single car on and around the road. Even a mixed road can do this if the human-operated cars are equipped with transponders that can be read by self-driven cars. An accident caused by a self-driven car on an exclusively self-driven car road will be instantly transmitted and there will be a good chance the other cars will avoid it. Of course distance between adjacent cars will have to be set to a safe level, but it will be a lot less than is safe for human drivers, and a longer distance will not affect the speed on the road the way it does for human drivers.
I've always said that self-driving cars could be implemented on freeways way before other roadway types, because the task of driving on them is much simpler, and you can maintain good lane markings on them, but you can't in other situations such as rural areas where large paved gravel, dirt, or paved areas/parking lots blend with streets.
If cars could self drive on freeways only, that would be a huge improvement, since freeways are where almost all accidents and congestion occour, and 25% of all mileage driven in the US is on freeways.
Driving short distances on city streets bothers very few. Driving long distances and in congestion on freeways does
Might happen in 1000 years.
Might be a little sooner. Insurance companies in the UK are already talking about getting human-driven cars off the road.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/25/autonomous-car-projects-plot-course-uk-driverless-future
Quote from: vdeane on April 27, 2017, 08:54:35 PM
Might be a little sooner. Insurance companies in the UK are already talking about getting human-driven cars off the road.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/25/autonomous-car-projects-plot-course-uk-driverless-future
Thing is, current cars are designed for 20 years service life. Even if provisions for installation of full automation are made 5 years before final technology is ready - mix would be 50/50 in 5 years after technology is fully introduced; with insurance trying to punish owners of older cars - i.e. those who cannot afford new ones. I can see some interesting political consequences..
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on April 27, 2017, 07:54:14 PM
Might happen in 1000 years.
Says someone who has never known life without the internet, GPS and cell phones.
The last 25 years have brought an immense amount of technology into our daily lives. 25 years ago, we still imagined flying cars. No one talked about self driving cars. Today, no flying cars exist. Self driving cars do.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 27, 2017, 10:18:06 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on April 27, 2017, 07:54:14 PM
Might happen in 1000 years.
Says someone who has never known life without the internet, GPS and cell phones.
The last 25 years have brought an immense amount of technology into our daily lives. 25 years ago, we still imagined flying cars. No one talked about self driving cars. Today, no flying cars exist. Self driving cars do.
I am talking about all self driving cars.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 27, 2017, 10:18:06 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on April 27, 2017, 07:54:14 PM
Might happen in 1000 years.
Says someone who has never known life without the internet, GPS and cell phones.
The last 25 years have brought an immense amount of technology into our daily lives. 25 years ago, we still imagined flying cars. No one talked about self driving cars. Today, no flying cars exist. Self driving cars do.
There are some flying cars. But development seem to stuck at about same level as modern self-driving technology. And unlike self-driving, flying cars don't have development momentum or multibillion corporations investing....
Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 27, 2017, 10:18:06 PM
25 years ago, we still imagined flying cars. No one talked about self driving cars. Today, no flying cars exist. Self driving cars do.
Flying cars exist. They're called helicopters. Turns out, operating and navigating in three dimensions is much more difficult and expensive.
Quote from: MNHighwayMan on April 28, 2017, 06:48:47 AM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 27, 2017, 10:18:06 PM
25 years ago, we still imagined flying cars. No one talked about self driving cars. Today, no flying cars exist. Self driving cars do.
Flying cars exist. They're called helicopters. Turns out, operating and navigating in three dimensions is much more difficult and expensive.
There is some more car-like development, e.g. https://www.aeromobil.com/
I would say that safety - and liability, of course - would be big issues. You can pull over to shoulder and call AAA on roads; harder to do that in the sky..
Quote from: kalvado on April 28, 2017, 07:25:56 AM
Quote from: MNHighwayMan on April 28, 2017, 06:48:47 AM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 27, 2017, 10:18:06 PM
25 years ago, we still imagined flying cars. No one talked about self driving cars. Today, no flying cars exist. Self driving cars do.
Flying cars exist. They're called helicopters. Turns out, operating and navigating in three dimensions is much more difficult and expensive.
There is some more car-like development, e.g. https://www.aeromobil.com/
I would say that safety - and liability, of course - would be big issues. You can pull over to shoulder and call AAA on roads; harder to do that in the sky..
They are nothing more than prototypes which won't see any use. Self-driving cars though are fully out there. Bits of self-driving cars, such as those that parallel park themselves exist (albeit they're slow).
Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 28, 2017, 08:42:41 AM
Quote from: kalvado on April 28, 2017, 07:25:56 AM
Quote from: MNHighwayMan on April 28, 2017, 06:48:47 AM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 27, 2017, 10:18:06 PM
25 years ago, we still imagined flying cars. No one talked about self driving cars. Today, no flying cars exist. Self driving cars do.
Flying cars exist. They're called helicopters. Turns out, operating and navigating in three dimensions is much more difficult and expensive.
There is some more car-like development, e.g. https://www.aeromobil.com/
I would say that safety - and liability, of course - would be big issues. You can pull over to shoulder and call AAA on roads; harder to do that in the sky..
They are nothing more than prototypes which won't see any use. Self-driving cars though are fully out there. Bits of self-driving cars, such as those that parallel park themselves exist (albeit they're slow).
I am pretty much with you
Quote from: kalvado on April 28, 2017, 06:29:48 AM
There are some flying cars. But development seem to stuck at about same level as modern self-driving technology. And unlike self-driving, flying cars don't have development momentum or multibillion corporations investing....
A big question for me is if self-driving would develop to the point of avoiding a deer at 100 MPH. Without that it would be an exotic toy, not a mainstream product...
I don't think it can be solved with raw computing power - which doesn't grow as fast as it used to be. Everyone is talking about cognitive computing and stuff like that; but TrueNorth - probably one of most advanced ones - "shows potential to become a good speech recognition device", or something along those lines.
Self driving cars will be a DISASTER. Millions will die as a result of it. Hopefully the politicians and what it can eliminate it from happening or at least prolong it.
Quote from: tribar on April 28, 2017, 12:07:59 PM
Self driving cars will be a DISASTER. Millions will die as a result of it. Hopefully the politicians and what it can eliminate it from happening or at least prolong it.
Millions will die? Why?
Quote from: Rothman on April 28, 2017, 12:13:00 PM
Quote from: tribar on April 28, 2017, 12:07:59 PM
Self driving cars will be a DISASTER. Millions will die as a result of it. Hopefully the politicians and what it can eliminate it from happening or at least prolong it.
Millions will die? Why?
Because we all are going to die at some point anyway! :awesomeface:
Quote from: kalvado on April 28, 2017, 09:06:51 AM
A big question for me is if self-driving would develop to the point of avoiding a deer at 100 MPH.
Or slowing down when a basketball just
starts to bounce the wrong way off the goal in the driveway, in
anticipation of the child chasing after it.
Or moving over in
advance of the storm drain, in
anticipation of the cyclist swinging wide of it.
Self driving cars are very inevitable and much closer than the pessimists think. Newer cars can already come with computers that will tell you if you are deviating from the lane or hit the brakes to avoid a collision. Autonomous highway travel is going to be the next big step. Once the concept has been tested enough with passenger autos, the trucking industry is going to be all over it. They'll see how much they'll save in fuel and reduced collisions and put their thumb on the scale in states that are dragging their feet on rules for autonomous vehicles. Before long, you'll see platoons of semis 20 deep, bumper to bumper like a great road train rolling across the prairie.
That should be the focus right now. Long distance highway travel. It's easier and will have the greatest cost savings for the smallest effort. I want to drive my car to the freeway entrance and tell it, "Take me to exit 243." Then sit back and enjoy the ride.
Throw my hat in the pot...
Computers aren't exactly the smartest beings - you can always alter them to do your bidding. If I wanted to be a jerk in a self driving car, I could pop the hood, alter the computer by installing things like software, solder stuff to the computer, and voila - I've just changed the entire car. I know, self driving cars are going to happen, and probably within months, but computers can't operate the entire world. Besides, do ya think a computer can tell the distance between the front bumper of your car to the back bumper of the next?
Changes that I've heard may happen with self driving cars:
* More pavement marking maintenance (which wouldn't be a bad thing for everyone else)
* Signs may have messages that would be readable by the self driving cars but invisible to the human driver.
I have also heard that much more detailed mapping is going on in preparation for self driving cars - think of a computerized map that shows where roadway lanes begin and end, and also shows the width of those lanes.
Quote from: noelbotevera on April 29, 2017, 10:57:56 AM
Besides, do ya think a computer can tell the distance between the front bumper of your car to the back bumper of the next?
There are tools that could be installed to allow the computer to do such a thing, Google certainly indicates plenty are available. (https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&output=search&tbm=shop&q=laser+distance+measurer&oq=laser+distance&gs_l=products-cc.1.0.0l6.1255.3024.0.4499.14.10.0.2.2.0.257.1130.0j6j1.7.0....0...1ac.1.64.products-cc..6.8.883...0i10k1.rAsR4ucU6Kc)
Quote from: noelbotevera on April 29, 2017, 10:57:56 AM
Besides, do ya think a computer can tell the distance between the front bumper of your car to the back bumper of the next?
As already said, in terms of sensing computers can be way better than humans. It may be not a cheap set of sensors, but at the same time computer is not limited with just 2 cameras mother nature gave us. LIDAR can tell you that distance down to a fraction of inch, and take action once that distance start changing.
Problems may occur when that distance is not the only factor required to assess overall situation. Smooth traffic flow on a highway is, probably, the easiest possible scenario.
Quote from: kphoger on April 28, 2017, 02:00:46 PM
Quote from: kalvado on April 28, 2017, 09:06:51 AM
A big question for me is if self-driving would develop to the point of avoiding a deer at 100 MPH.
Or slowing down when a basketball just starts to bounce the wrong way off the goal in the driveway, in anticipation of the child chasing after it.
Or moving over in advance of the storm drain, in anticipation of the cyclist swinging wide of it.
And they will develop, to all of those things. Once the system learns to identify basketballs and storm drains, anticipation is the easy part. Besides, the vehicles' reaction time will be so much better that the need for anticipation is greatly lessened to begin with.
iPhone
Cars and computers already interact in other ways. Many people rely on Google maps to see how traffic is flowing with the green, orange and red icons. Its become extremely dependable to within a few hundred feet. They !eed something to accurate gauge that. Maybe it's cell phones. Maybe it's the black box in your car. But it's something. And once that technology arroved, we don't give it a second thought anymore. Once self driving cars become more common (sorry SP Cook...Self driving cars are here...they're not science fixtion) we will start to forget what we think they can't do...and wonder what more they can do for us. Say, automatically pull into a gas station and self engage with the pump to fuel up, for example.
https://twitter.com/cat_beltane/status/588359354136403969
To some degree, self-driving cars are the same as any other innovation in vehicular technology. The autopilot feature first enters the market in luxury models, but then as time goes on it starts to work its way down into more common new vehicles as well - first as an option, then as standard. From that point, since cars have long lifespans, it'll be another couple decades before human-driven cars become something you don't really see anymore, but it'll happen.
The real question is whether, like with airbags, regulators will step in and make it a mandatory safety feature, or whether, like with automatic transmissions, it will simply become something the vast majority of people voluntarily adopt because for anyone who isn't a niche enthusiast it's just so convenient with no apparent downside. I could see this going either way, depending on which group of opposing interests wins out.
What I don't think we'll see is the idea of people owning their own cars going the way of the dodo. Yes, the idea of "but the car can just leave you and go get the next person" fits lovely into the new urbanist vision of utopia where parked cars never darken our curbsides again, but this ignores the reality that people like owning things and being able to treat them as their personal domain. It also ignores the reality that people tend to store personal belongings in their vehicles and in some cases it is impractical or at least inconvenient not to (imagine, for example, going on a fishing trip and having to bring all of your gear into your hotel room every night because the car is going to drive away and serve someone else).
Quote from: Duke87 on April 29, 2017, 07:37:34 PM
What I don't think we'll see is the idea of people owning their own cars going the way of the dodo. Yes, the idea of "but the car can just leave you and go get the next person" fits lovely into the new urbanist vision of utopia where parked cars never darken our curbsides again, but this ignores the reality that people like owning things and being able to treat them as their personal domain. It also ignores the reality that people tend to store personal belongings in their vehicles and in some cases it is impractical or at least inconvenient not to (imagine, for example, going on a fishing trip and having to bring all of your gear into your hotel room every night because the car is going to drive away and serve someone else).
I second this. The idea of not owning a car and having one drive to my location after ferrying someone else around is unappealing, especially with the way other often treat stuff that is not theirs. Just look how well this work with library items. Worst case with cars - say a car ferries a group home from a bar in the overnight hours, and someone hurls in it. Who is going to clean up that car before it drives to take someone to work in the early morning hours?
Of course I believe self driving cars are coming, even if it means it being regulated to only being used on freeways and highways only. I believe also that they need to definitely step up on road signs to allow them to be readable by the self driving car......Ahem, California...... OCR nightmare there.
Here in Arizona, our major freeways would make it easy very easy for a self driving car to navigate. Lane markings are quite visible, and clean, mostly newer pavement, etc.
Quote from: redlightgreenarrow1 on May 10, 2017, 03:32:47 AM
Of course I believe self driving cars are coming, even if it means it being regulated to only being used on freeways and highways only. I believe also that they need to definitely step up on road signs to allow them to be readable by the self driving car......Ahem, California...... OCR nightmare there.
Here in Arizona, our major freeways would make it easy very easy for a self driving car to navigate. Lane markings are quite visible, and clean, mostly newer pavement, etc.
Vehicles wouldn't need to "read" the signs, per se; rather, they'd already inherently "know" them as part of a database. (And some signs only pertain to human operators; autonomous vehicles wouldn't need that information at all.)
Quote from: empirestate on May 10, 2017, 10:01:55 AM
Quote from: redlightgreenarrow1 on May 10, 2017, 03:32:47 AM
Of course I believe self driving cars are coming, even if it means it being regulated to only being used on freeways and highways only. I believe also that they need to definitely step up on road signs to allow them to be readable by the self driving car......Ahem, California...... OCR nightmare there.
Here in Arizona, our major freeways would make it easy very easy for a self driving car to navigate. Lane markings are quite visible, and clean, mostly newer pavement, etc.
Vehicles wouldn't need to "read" the signs, per se; rather, they'd already inherently "know" them as part of a database. (And some signs only pertain to human operators; autonomous vehicles wouldn't need that information at all.)
I was thinking about that a while ago. The car still needs to know where to go in the micro sense. (<5ft) I'm pretty sure you can't get that with GPS right now, so it needs visual input. So not necessarily signs, but pavement markings are important.
As for the idea in general, I think we're 5 years off from the first rollout of a publicly available model, further five years for it to rollout to the "common people" (<$15k), then twenty years to get 95% of cars, then we can start on the iRobot no steering wheels idea
Quote from: intelati49 on May 10, 2017, 10:33:31 AM
Quote from: empirestate on May 10, 2017, 10:01:55 AM
Quote from: redlightgreenarrow1 on May 10, 2017, 03:32:47 AM
Of course I believe self driving cars are coming, even if it means it being regulated to only being used on freeways and highways only. I believe also that they need to definitely step up on road signs to allow them to be readable by the self driving car......Ahem, California...... OCR nightmare there.
Here in Arizona, our major freeways would make it easy very easy for a self driving car to navigate. Lane markings are quite visible, and clean, mostly newer pavement, etc.
Vehicles wouldn't need to "read" the signs, per se; rather, they'd already inherently "know" them as part of a database. (And some signs only pertain to human operators; autonomous vehicles wouldn't need that information at all.)
I was thinking about that a while ago. The car still needs to know where to go in the micro sense. (<5ft) I'm pretty sure you can't get that with GPS right now, so it needs visual input. So not necessarily signs, but pavement markings are important.
Exactly; it's a rather different set of sensory input than what humans require. Anything static that we observe with our eyes, such as road signs, can instead be electronically stored in or transmitted to an autonomous vehicle. Real-time information like vehicle position and the movements of other traffic still require some kind of "seeing" by the vehicle. And a large amount of that information will stop being needed once all other traffic becomes autonomous, because vehicles can transmit their movements to each other electronically.
Hmm, I wonder if non-autonomous vehicles will start being equipped with just that: a system to transmit their movements to other vehicles that are autonomous? It may help alleviate some of the conflicts that will arise during the mixed-traffic phase of their evolution.
Don't some "autonomous" cars read the speed limit signs to determine the speed limit? I know that Teslas do that to show you the speed limit on the dash--rather than relying on database info- possibly for greater accuracy.
Quote from: empirestate on May 10, 2017, 10:41:19 AM
Hmm, I wonder if non-autonomous vehicles will start being equipped with just that: a system to transmit their movements to other vehicles that are autonomous? It may help alleviate some of the conflicts that will arise during the mixed-traffic phase of their evolution.
Pretty sure that standard will be hashed out after the first guy comes out with the first car.
(https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/standards.png)
Quote from: redlightgreenarrow1 on May 10, 2017, 10:45:59 AM
Don't some "autonomous" cars read the speed limit signs to determine the speed limit? I know that Teslas do that to show you the speed limit on the dash--rather than relying on database info- possibly for greater accuracy.
I would say you need both. Sometimes signs are less than readable due to snow/dirt/whatnot; and sometimes there will be a cop enforcing just-reduced speed limit.
Reading 2 digits of fairly standard sign format should be doable. Something like
AD uRK AHEAD and recognizing part of the sign is missing would be more of a challenge.
Quote from: kalvado on May 10, 2017, 11:21:28 AM
Quote from: redlightgreenarrow1 on May 10, 2017, 10:45:59 AM
Don't some "autonomous" cars read the speed limit signs to determine the speed limit? I know that Teslas do that to show you the speed limit on the dash--rather than relying on database info- possibly for greater accuracy.
I would say you need both. Sometimes signs are less than readable due to snow/dirt/whatnot; and sometimes there will be a cop enforcing just-reduced speed limit.
Reading 2 digits of fairly standard sign format should be doable. Something like AD uRK AHEAD and recognizing part of the sign is missing would be more of a challenge.
I guess I'd put it this way: in a fully autonomous system you wouldn't need both, since the only type of "sign" anybody would deploy would be virtual. But for as long as self-driving cars are needed to operate within a human-oriented system, yes, you will need additional technology installed.
This is the great challenge, of course: it's not that it's hard to advance to the level of self-driving cars, it's that we first have to advance substantially beyond that level until such time as we can revert to the easier system.
iPhone
Quote from: empirestate on May 10, 2017, 10:41:19 AM
once all other traffic becomes autonomous
This will only happen if walking and bicycling become illegal.
Quote from: kphoger on May 10, 2017, 01:25:32 PM
Quote from: empirestate on May 10, 2017, 10:41:19 AM
once all other traffic becomes autonomous
This will only happen if walking and bicycling become illegal.
Right, and until then, a commensurately smaller amount of that information will stop being needed.
iPhone
A majority of people are afraid of change. Just think years ago cellphones weren't around, and when they started to develop people didn't want them around, only a Minority of people really had or wanted a cellphone (They were also very expensive). Now its 2017 and people scramble every year to get the latest I-Phone; Self driving cars will be the norm just like how marijuana will soon be legal. :awesomeface: