Driverless cars may not be quite as revolutionary as the 19th century spread of the railway, but there are huge benefits coming into view. The sooner we can deliver them, and the sooner policymakers can take them into account, the better – with mixed results for railways.
To be conservative, let’s imagine it’s 2044 – 30 years from now. We will look back at the idea of people customarily directing 1 tonne cars at speed as madness. Millions of lives will be saved worldwide through autonomous driving and communication between cars.
Even more bizarre will be the idea that we spent so many wasted hours at the steering wheel pushing pedals and knobs. Instead, you can work, talk, read, play, watch TV, sleep and more – all in redesigned interiors.
With increased safety, synchronised driving and smart navigating, driverless cars will be faster too. But they will also be more energy efficient, with slipstreaming and efficient driving – on top of the move to electric cars.
Perhaps the biggest transformations will stem from a reduction in car ownership. Many will still want or need their own car, filled with their own stuff. But for many, driverless cars will be interchangeable. They will simply electronically call for a car (perhaps specifying its features) and one will arrive to pick them up. Young people in particular (if allowed) will be able to travel by road just as easily and cheaply as anyone else.
With shared use, the stock of cars will be used far more efficiently, with fewer vehicles needed. And as they can come to you, they won’t need to take up prime space in town centres and can be stored together as densely as possible elsewhere. They will also facilitate road pricing – meaning fairer taxes and further reduced congestion.
Shared and efficient use of vehicles, energy efficiency, reduced insurance costs, reduced pollution, no drivers, and the smaller number of components in a driverless, electric car, mean that road travel will in time be considerably more affordable.
Will the cost and experience of train travel improve in the same way? No. I’ve come to suspect that rail may in general be just inherently less economical and less convenient than cars and buses (even accounting for any environmental harm). Driverless cars will widen the gap even further.
Neither renationalisation nor increased competition would make a huge difference. And increased public subsidy is a false economy and one of the most pro-rich forms of public spending. These are the usual political debates. But what would actually make a difference are: 1) more flexible working to let people avoid peak hours; and 2) ending the various cross-subsidies from popular to non-profitable elements of the network. The least heavily used 50% of stations together account for just 3.6% of traffic, for example, yet train operating companies are allowed no latitude to reduce costs for the vast majority.
Shared driverless cars will help kill off slow, local trains and buses without disempowering their current users, while other train routes – such as the most-used commuter trains – will be helped by the removal of those cross-subsidies. Long-distance, high-speed rail can play an important role too: driverless cars won’t be able to go the 200 miles from Manchester to London in 68 minutes (as HS2 would), and people would be more free to switch from car to train and back for longer journeys. But for many, unsubsidised trains will struggle to beat the convenience, experience and low cost of driverless road travel.
The current government rightly “wants to make the UK a world centre for the development of driverless cars”. But we must do more to explore the possibility of such radical transformations, and the questions and opportunities they raise. Not least: will current road and rail policies make sense in 30 years? Will society allow driverless cars? And – ultimately – will we allow cars with drivers?
Photo of “Driverless car in Bonita Springs” by Chris Griffith
* Adam Corlett is an economic analyst and Lib Dem member
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28 Comments
The sooner we can get these cars on the roads and get the drunk/drugged/tired/distracted and the plain awful drivers out of control the better!
Will I be covered if someone hits me who hasn’t kept their car’s anti-virus protection up-to-date?
How will driverless cars interact with other road users?
It seems obvious that automated cars should take maximum care to avoid collisions with pedestrians crossing the road. However if pedestrians know that the car will always stop for you, people would start ignoring the distinction between road and pavement, which could seriously impede traffic flow.
I think we’ll need to see much more dedicated infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians in order to keep things safe and moving. And I’ve no idea how horses will be dealt with.
“Shared driverless cars will help kill off slow, local trains and buses without disempowering their current users”
Oh yes, and of course Beeching’s cuts of the 1960s never left any small towns and villages without effective transport links as all the lines removed were going to be replaced by bus routes to the local station.
Oh, look, when I move my leg there’s a tinkling sound.
This article does not show enough concern for risk.
This article is entirely one-sided in extolling the virtues of cars without drivers. What about the draw-backs? How about the fact that many people actually enjoy driving and enjoy the fact that it gives them personal freedom, which shared driver-less cars wouldn’t?
Judging by the remarks that shared driver-less cars will replace slow trains – in reality, they just seem to be the new buses – how is a new generation of small buses/minibuses ,(which is basically what they are), helpful to an already clogged road system?
How indeed is this an environmentally friendly alternative?
How about the idea that the thought of driver-less cars is quite spooky.
That’s why I’m not as wildly enthusiastic as the writer of the article is.
They already do, they’re called motorists and they appear to believe that the pavement is provided to give them off road parking or to allow them to drive round an obstacle or whatever they feel like. Before having a go at pedestrians try having a go at those who already break the law by being so anti-social.
The argument to withdraw cross-subsidy from less used stations blights what is otherwise a thoughtful piece.
These stations are largely rural. If they close, how will car-less people get about? There are fewer buses by the week. The lack of rural transport is bringing about a fundamental transformation in the character of our villages. It’s not the only factor driving working and young people away from rural areas, but it often tips the balance . Villages that once thrived, sleep during the day in commuter land and sleep all week, sometimes all winter in remoter areas.
We need to keep rural transport until driverless cars become a reality. And what’s the bet they prove too expensive to run out of urban areas?
Andy Boddington has sensibly put what I tried to imply with the medium of sarcasm.
This article, whilst interesting, seems to imply that choice and ease of convenience are desirable over all other criteria. I can think of lots of reasons why scheduled, regular mass-carriage public transport should not be removed from any number of routes in favour of a system based on ad hoc, peer-to-peer usage. It seems more likely the projected driverless car networks would replace taxi companies where they already have replaced or supplemented public transport and all that would happen would be that taxi drivers will be made redundant or forced to become operators or call-handlers at centrallised locations.
Adam,
Would you jump into a car with one or two other people in it who you had never met before for a journey (hopefully) from London to Birmingham? At least on a train there is a guard and some other staff to provide some reassurance. Even if you would, would you advise an elderly lady or young person to do so.
Do think things through. Think tanks do need people who can do that.
This technology will not replace any existing technology. In fact Duncan hinted at the reality. Even now with cars, buses, trains etc, people still occasionally get from a to b (and back to a again) on horseback.
However, the freedom to not own a car, and hire one (via a club, or ad hoc) when needed, of the size/type needed,, which will drive itself to your door and then take itself away after, with the option to drive yourself (at a higher insurance premium) or let it drive you, will certainly appeal to many.
They will not be permitted on the roads until they are demonstrably at least as safe as cars driven by humans. They will not replace mass-transit, although mass-transit may turn out to be driverless buses and driverless trains. They will not replace self-drive cars, although you can expect (as already mentioned) a growing cost penalty for insuring yourself to drive, especially if you only do so rarely.
Driverless cars – a wet dream of the gullible who have read too much science fiction!
Yes much that is being reported by the ‘news’ media isn’t about the real stuff that is actually changing our world, but stuff that grabs eye balls. Driverless cars (and drone parcel delivery systems) are more about creating both a focus and a media friendly image of a research programme and hence justify expenditure.
Why am I being so negative? well having been involved in the deployment of driverless trains back in the 1980’s (the rail network is a much simpler environment than the public roads), I can’t help but note that we still use drivers on the majority of our rail services and from my reading of the HS2 documents we will be employing human drivers for these trains …
What I find a little surprising is given Adam’s stated interest in Economic’s is the rather casual coverage of the economic implications. A major one being as Matt (Bristol) has pointed out, the effective evaporation of a complete sector of employment (and economic activity) within a single working life. Additionally, if we take to shared usage route, the whole idea of car ownership and purchase changes, which in turn will totally transform the motor industry.
Also he seems to think that driverless cars will magically make people more willing to share a car, when much of what has driven our economies is people wanting to ape the rich and own their own whatever…
Yes I would want to make the UK a world centre for the research and development of “driverless cars” because it will draw in investment into UK based R&D and hence JOBS!!! In the same way that other technology research programmes have pulled money in. However, I would be under no illusion that driverless cars will be hitting the public highways within the lifetime of my grandchildren.
Driverless cars are coming, whether individuals can get their heads around the application of the technology or not, and when they are accepted the entire raison d’etre of HS2 goes right out of the window too.
Voyager, even if what you say is true, this article is not gunning at HS2; it is aiming at removing ‘local, slow’ passenger services (and also buses), which I and others would suggest would leave many individuals and communities with less access to transport, not more.
Matt & Voyager – The real issue isn’t so much whether the car’s are or aren’t driverless, but whether access to car transport changes, namely whether the removal of the human driver would firstly make car ownership an option for more people and secondly whether it would bring about a transformation in the taxi/shared vehicle market, which in turn would make personal journeys more accessible to people, particularly those who at present are effectively dependent upon public transport and ‘local’ buses specifically.
A driverless car could start to impact railways if the transport develops to the point that for example the car can become a mobile meeting room/office that can reliably get people from A-to-B in a predictable time. Once this happens, for many journeys, it will become irrelevant whether the journey time is 45 minutes or 2 hours, particularly if the 2 hours can be used productively. But for this to happen we don’t really need driverless cars, we need a road system that behaves predictably…
To my mind the local slow services that will be under threat are those that don’t really deliver service, but these are the ones that should be under threat now! For example in my area we have a service that is marketed as connecting several major towns, however I wouldn’t advise using this service to go from town to town because it’s route is via all the villages, hence a ten mile journey down an A road is transformed into a 20+ mile journey mainly down B roads and lanes. This mess is largely a result of the privatisation back in the 80’s and 90’s where coherent route planning and co-ordination of services was thrown out the window.
So as I’ve pointed out we don’t actually need driverless cars, but some of the things we need to address in-order to have driverless cars would be very useful to have, hence why the R&D focus is good, just don’t expect it to deliver the dream.
@ David Evans. I don’t think I chose my words carefully enough, but I didn’t mean to suggest that people would share a car at the same time. Rather, the cars would be shared in the sense that one person would use it, and then someone else and so on (regardless of ownership model) – as opposed to exclusive use. Apologies for any confusion.
@ Andy Boddington and Matt: “These stations are largely rural. If they close, how will car-less people get about?” As I think you picked up, my argument was that the barriers to car use would be much lower with driverless cars. Public policy might have a role to play in ensuring that villages had a large enough stock of open-to-all cars to avoid cutting people off, and perhaps in ensuring there are disability friendly travel options. More generally though, I do think that subsidies for rural travel should be localised, and if we want to give more to rural authorities and inhabitants (to use as they please), that should be done transparently.
@Helen, “How about the fact that many people actually enjoy driving?” Good question and one that I’m sure will be a big area of discussion in a few decades. As I asked, “ultimately – will we allow cars with drivers?”
I fully expect a furious ethical debate to happen when we get driverless cars which are 10 times safer than driven cars, and therefore still kill dozens of people a year. “Murdered by machine” will be the headline. No mention of the hundreds of lives saved by the machine.
Many smart commentators will find clever ways to imply that this is not an improvement on what went before.
Cars are less efficient means of transportation than public transport and increase harms from pollution and congestion. Why on earth would you see a reduction of public transport in favour of driverless cars as a good thing, rather than a wastefully, inefficient means of transportation?
@g
Because cars go places where public transport doesn’t? Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t reduce public transport just because driverless cars were available, but being one of them rural types I’m well aware that many areas aren’t served well by public transport. There’s a space for the driverless car in there, arguably. That having been said, I wholeheartedly agree with Roland that this vision is a nice excuse for R&D funding of useful techologies but that we are far far too early to start talking about changes to public infrastructure based on the inevitable positive outcome of this research. T’ain’t going to happen any time soon.
Very interesting ideas in the article. In particular that very last line “will we allow cars with drivers?” because driving is widely viewed (and certainly strongly marketed) as an enjoyable activity in itself.
What’s the point of having a high-performance car if you’re not the one who puts the peddle to the metal? “The ultimate dozing machine”? “Vorsprung durch knitting”? I don’t see how this gets past the automotive industry lobby.
I’ve just ordered a new car – just a golf. The dealer asked if I wanted it to have the “self parking” gadget where you press a button and it parks the car all by itself. I said no, I’d never use it because I wouldn’t trust it. He gave a tight little smile like someone who was used to hearing that reply.
Adam Corlett
” As I asked, “ultimately – will we allow cars with drivers?”
If you present the argument in that way, what you assume is that people will put health and safety ahead of other considerations – enjoyment of driving, buying cars to drive and look after, the individual sense of freedom and so on.
It may well be that some people will like this innovation but I think it ignores human behaviour, especially that of many men. Go to a car show or watch Top Gear. You have that constituency to convince and I’m not sure the think-tanks can blue sky think their way out of that one.
I would prefer to improve the environmental cleanliness of cars and improve public transport to wean us off cars, rather than introduce driver-less cars , or should I describe them as taxis or buses?
Adam, I am now intrigued as to what are the planning and policy mechanisms you would put in place to ensure a national network of driverless cars that is, as you suggest, genuinely open to all?
There is barely any track record in this country for putting in place a genuine open-to-all new national infrastructure for any new technology post-1980. Mobile phone and internet networks were left to the market, built slowly and still have local and regional gaps and inequalities, often quite bafflingly slow. Digital TV and Radio built on existing network provision and a national broadcaster, and was still slow.
You are beginning to imply by your language a centrallised planning regime of the kind not seen since the 60s; I just don’t believe that private provision would be able to build the kind of coverage you suggest, even with policy incentiives. Are you proposing nationalised spending and investment to make this dream a reality?
I am also intrigued that you seem to be largely talking about the cars as if they would require no new roads infrastructure investment. Obviously the technology is being developed, but I would think it is reasonably possible that some kind of telemetry or guidance networks would need to be installed either at points, or possible throughout the route(s), as with the current ‘wire in road’ rapid transit solution being developed here in Bristol, thus requiring further hard cash from central government in order to create guenuine national coverage, all for improved individual convenience.
daft ha’p’orth
ecause cars go places where public transport doesn’t? Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t reduce public transport just because driverless cars were available, but being one of them rural types I’m well aware that many areas aren’t served well by public transport.
Wouldn’t it be better to focus on improving public transport in rural areas rather than driverless car development? After all, we already have invented the bus, while the driverless car seems some decades off.
Just another aspect to this: every one is assuming that some one, in central London say, will be able to jump into a car and say “take me to the NIA” and the car take them there; but… given this is 2044, surely the route chosen will have many more factors evaluated than current generation sat-nat’s – so if my preference was for ‘fast’, I would expect the car to deposit me at Euston, so that I could catch HS2 (ticket pre-purchased automatically by car during route selection) to Birmingham, where another car is waiting…
This sounds fine in principle (except that driverless cars would still be far less fuel economic than trains), but it’s all predicated on the assumption that the systems would never malfunction. This is an unwise assumption. Driverless vehicles on fixed tracks are pretty safe, but driverless cars would have to be far more flexible and therefore their management would involve a far greater number of actions, all of which could go wrong. After all, computers never go wrong, do they?
@g
Ahahahahaha. Hahaha. Hahaha. Heh. Whooo…. *snort* Good one.
We’ve had decades to do that, and all that happened was everything became privatised and then companies explained that much to their unhappiness it wasn’t economical to provide a decent bus service outside the most profitable times. I would be very happy to see improvements in rural bus services. However, I’m not holding my breath for that any more than I expect driverless cars to solve the problem; one isn’t going to happen for political reasons and the other is unlikely to happen any time soon on technical grounds.
Sorry, but I’m feeling a bit cynical about this; after many years of attempting to have a car-free existence I finally gave in recently. It’s a very strange thing: after over a decade of obsessively planning everything in advance it finally became possible to drive a few miles to the shop and pick up some Polyfilla or salad or whatever, or visit the gym without having to spend the rest of the evening huddled at a bus stop.
Huddled at abus stop? What’s wrong with bicycle?
“With shared use, the stock of cars will be used far more efficiently, with fewer vehicles needed.”
There already exists a service where you can order a car that you don’t have to drive to take you from one place to another at an agreed time. It’s called a taxi. People don’t use them for a number of reasons – they’re expensive, you have to wait for them, you don’t have flexibility to change your mind, you have no travel storage (you have to take everything out when you get to your destination as you will get a different taxi back), they require far too much planning for short journeys. In short, most people find owning a car is better for their need.
The only things that would be different between a taxi with a driver and a driverless taxi is the lack of driver. The financial saving of not paying a driver would be massively outweighed by the cost of necessary infrastructure and the fact that a driverless car will still cost a lot more than a drivable car – even if they come down from the 100k+ they currently cost.
If they get cheap enough, driverless taxis may take over the current taxi space and may grow a bit, but the idea that people won’t own their own car because taxis don’t have drivers any more seems absurdly far fetched.