I've previously argued that any automated car safety technology that reduces deaths will become required by governments including eventually robotic driving once it becomes safer than human driving. Well, let me add some more reasons why governments will mandate robotic driving: Automatic control of groups of cars going down a freeway will increase fuel efficiency and reduce traffic jams.
An automated way of allowing cars to drive much closer to each other in heavy moving traffic, so-called platooning, could cut congestion, save fuel and cut greenhouse gas emissions, according to research published today in Inderscience's International Journal of the Environment and Pollution.
Don't you just hate it when in heavy traffic one guy hits his breaks and then cars behind hit theirs even harder as they see brake lights and suddenly a lump of cars has slowed way down? If a long line of cars ran under computer coordination this cause of traffic slow-downs could be greatly reduced.
As populations grow and the number of vehicles on the roads in cities and motorways across Europe, North America and the developing world, rises, traditional ways of tackling the problem, such as simply building more roads or improving public transport are becoming less and less effective. "Automated highway systems are one of the many approaches that have been suggested to tackle the problems," says Mitra.
Traffic is a growing problem across the globe with the number of vehicles on the on the roads in Britain alone having risen from 26 million to almost 33 million in the last decade and that number set to rise by 25% over the next ten years. The problem is burgeoning in areas of enormous economic growth, such as China and India where countless new vehicles are pulling out and entering the traffic flow on newly built roads. With all that new traffic, of course, comes more pollution, and the need for ever more innovative approaches to tackling it.
Technologies that are a step in this direction already have reached the market under the title of autonomous (or active or adaptive or intelligent) cruise control where a laser or radar on the front of a car detects other cars in front driving at lower speeds and the cruise control slows the car to run at the same speed as the car in front of it. This is still an expensive luxury option.
Computers that communicate between cars to coordinate acceleration could do a much better job of avoiding the need for any car to hit the brakes in the first place. Cars could run more closely together if they were far less likely to do unpredictable things.
IBM calls the research initiative collaborative driving, and the company says it's designed to prevent accidents and reduce traffic congestion. The work will be spearheaded by the IBM lab in Haifa, Israel. "More than a million people die on the roads every year around the world, and people waste a lot of time and money sitting in traffic jams," says IBM researcher Oleg Goldshmidt. "You would like to help with both problems in any way possible."
Humans are too error-prone behind the wheel. Slowly but surely driving is getting automated.
By Randall Parker at 2007 July 15 09:32 PM Robotics Cars | TrackBack"Humans are too error-prone behind the wheel. Slowly but surely driving is getting automated."
I agree that many, many lives will be saved if/when driving becomes increasingly automated. However, there will always be driving-related injuries/fatalities. If instead of being caused by human error, these injuries/fatalities can be attributed to technological flaws in the systems of companies with deep pockets, well that's just a huge liability. The people whose lives are "saved" by the technology aren't as visible as those whose lives will be "destroyed" by the technology. This asymmetry makes it hard too envision 100% automated driving in the current legal climate.
Hi Alex,
I disagree to some extent. Seat belts ("technology") sometimes cause death - in cases like plunging into a river, or fire - while a person not wearing a seatbelt would escape in such a situation. (I personally know one guy who is not wearing a seatbelt anymore after almost being drown in a car). Still, they are mandatory, and they are widely recognized as saving more lives than they destroy.
As to efficiency of tailgating - I tried the "non-automatic" approach and got ~42 mpg from Buick LeSabre. (tailgating after a semitrailer. Not dangerously close. I do not recommend anyone doing this, but it shows how much savings there are.)
Greg,
The difference is that if someone is hurt by wearing a seatbelt it's because the seatbelt worked correctly, not because of a technical failure of the device. If the seatbelt doesn't work properly, there's huge liability (e.g. http://www.jlbreport.com/2007/03/14/24-million-awarded-in-seat-belt-lawsuit/). A simple software glitch could easily be responsible for several deaths. It just seems like a huge liability issue to me.
I suspect convoying is coming much more slowly than surely. Automatic braking will become rather common and I think it can work well.
As for those one million deaths per year. I don't think automation will do much there. In poor countries it is not unusual to see a dozen people in the back of a pickup, or buses packed full and still more people on the roof. Top heavy on roads with treacherous shoulders, crossing ravines on poor bridges, or stalling in washes.
If you've ever drafted on a bicycle behind a truck/car, you know how much energy can be saved by taking advantage of reversed wind resistance.
I can easily go 40 -- and I could go much faster with a bigger gear ratio -- behind a semi with only occasional pedaling.
Platooning has many advantages. If it is on total safer than complete manual control, then idiosyncrasies (or idiotsyncrosies) of our legal liability system should be changed to allow us to reap the benefits of the superior technology. I believe something similar was done for the vaccine companies with the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. With that program since 1990, those 857 victims who suffer from the rare but real effects of vaccine injuries were compensated $750m in total with lawyers getting less than $43m. Less then 1/2 the petitioners were denied. This seems like a fair and rational way reign in our legal system making making stupid social choices.
Platooning and stiffer tires can double gas mileage on a freeway for cars.