One thing I was wondering about if we ended up with cars without user controls and that is parking. Not the physical task of parking but where to park, on-street parking is very, very common in the UK, and that often means hunting for a spot, going down the street and back up the street, going round the back of the chinese chippy where there are a couple of spots and so on. I know it is said that the cars will drop people off and go off and park themselves. I can see herds of these cars hunting for hours for a spot near you.
I've talked about this before, in the concert scenario.
How it currently works:
The people who take their own car, park somewhere near the venue, and after the show disperse on foot, and walk back to their cars, which are parked at various parking garages near the venue. From those diverse locations, the owners and their cars head home.
What will happen with self-driving cars:
After the show, everyone summons their self-driving cars. Since the cars cannot occupy the same physical space at the same time, a city-wide grid lock occurs as all the cars try to drive themselves from their parking place back to the venue at exactly the same time. Even for the ones that actually make it to the venue, the owners can't get to their cars, because of the mass of people all expecting their cars at the same time, and the cars can't leave because of the grid-lock.
We've already seen the chaos that occurs when three or four self-driving vehicles meet at an intersection, or car park.
Now imagine 10,000 vehicles all trying to get to the front door of an entertainment centre.
(Adelaide Entertainment Centre seats 10k people, I'm sure American equivalents would be larger.)
Note that all traffic modelling currently shows that traffic problems are increased by self-driving cars.
Why?
Because currently trips look like this:
1. Drive somewhere and park. (1 trip)
2. Go back to car and leave. (1 trip)
Self-driving trips look like this:
1. Drive somewhere and get out (1 trip)
2. Car drives somewhere else to get free parking (1 trip)
3. Car drives back (1 trip)
4. Get in car and leave (1 trip)
This means double the number of vehicles on the road during peak hours, because every vehicle is making an extra trip each way.
Note that some people who use taxis may start using driverless taxis, that doesn't change the number of vehicle trips, it's only the people that own and use their own cars that cause the increased number of vehicles on the road, because of the extra trips.
Note that driving away to some free parking location is part of the 'sell' for self-driving cars.
