Is anyone pondering the economic impact of driverless vehicles?

Forums: Autos, Driverless Cars, Social Impact, Economic Impact
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The other day I was thinking just how many people earn their living driving - from taxis, chaffeurs to uber operators. Truck, bus, forklift drivers. Pizza, postal and parcel delivery.

And just how close we are to driverless vehicles. And the advantages of them (fuel efficiency, safety, traffic management). And the barriers being reduced (cost of computing and communication infrastructure).

Then I find this story https://medium.com/basic-income/self-driving-trucks-are-going-to-hit-us-like-a-human-driven-truck-b8507d9c5961
With this infographic of the most common occupation by state:

https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/735/1*FAOTYaCoYpUhjiAe3sjofA.png

Has there been a bigger potential seismic event in the labour market? It has to rank at least equal with automation, industrialisation and computerisation and surpass female participation.

Any budding futurists like to extrapolate what might happen when computers make better drivers than we do?

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@hingehead,

It's going to have an enormous impact on a number of connected industries. Insurance is just one of them.

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@ehBeth,

Good one Beth. Hadn't thought of insurance - I imagine insurance costs will go up if you insist on driving. I think I heard the other day that there had been 10 accidents involving driverless vehicles (in something like a million hours of drive time (need to fact check that)) and everyone of them was caused by a driver in a different vehicle.

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If they perfect drone deliveries, there goes even more.

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@edgarblythe,

Yep, I was thinking that too. Say with home grocery delivery, or parcel delivery. Driverless truck goes to locale, releases flying monkeys, I mean preloaded drones which fly to local address, drop off goods and return to mothership which returns to depot. And of course robots would have loaded the drones.

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@hingehead,

They are testing delivery drones a couple of hours west of here, sorta close to where to djjd is.

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@hingehead,

Somehow the numbers don't add up. California has far less truck drivers
as Texas for example. Nationwide there are 3.5 million truck drivers - 200 million people are driving out of 340 million total population. So it's a bit less than 2 percent of truck drivers nationwide.

Here are some statistics http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes533032.htm

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@CalamityJane,

Hi CJ

I think you're misinterpreting the suggestion Jane. The most common job is never going to be a large percentage - but if you going to wipe out the most popular job in most states (whatever it is) than that's going to have more impact than making a less common job redundant.

And it's not just truck drivers. Taxi drivers, courier drivers, bus drivers, chauffeurs.

That the occupation doomed to largely disappear is one of fairly low and non-transferrable skills heightens the impact.

And the multipliers and knock on effects really interest me. Like sales of methamphetamine, beaded seat covers and nodding head elvis dolls.

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@hingehead,

Yes, I misunderstood that then, sorry!

You know, taxi drivers have a hard time nowadays anyway due to all the Uber drivers who are popping up everywhere. They're not allowed to stand on airports yet, however you can be driven by an Uber driver to the airport - just not picked up. That's in addition to all the little "go car" Smarts you can rent around big cities.

As for truck drivers, I think they will be the last ones standing if and when a driverless society is coming. We have a lot of weigh stations for trucks as well as other obstacles they need to tackle, I am not sure a truck can be programmed to overcome all these obstacles without driver.

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A few people think car ownership will drop as automated on-demand vehicles become ubiquitous and cheap to hire, which would also be the death knell of many a servo (I believe you weirdos call them 'gas stations') - although roadside diners would probably survive to feed people on interstates doing long trips.

Owning a vehicle would probably something 'hicks' would do because low population remote areas would be the last to make that sort of personal transport model financially viable.

Imagine the car equivalent of Bicycle Sharing Systems - but you don't even have to find a station, just make a request on your smartphone and in a few minutes it's at your door.

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Economic impact would definitely be huge . Apart from the afore mentioned, everything will be cheaper than it otherwise would be . The labour costs would disappear, and trucks could sit in a special delivery lane waiting for peak hour to finish, no one needs to book a motel unless they need a shower . Vehicles could be connected in a big line with connections like when towing a vehicle . The lead vehicle controls everyone's brakes and acceleration and off you go . This would save on the distance between vehicles, which causes accidents and wastage of fuel etc all by itself .

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Even self-parking cars aren't developed yet are expensive:

Quote:

A video showing a car attempting to park but actually plowing into journalists might have resulted from the Volvo’s owner not paying an extra fee to have the car avoid pedestrians.

Source

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@Ionus,

Ionus wrote:

Vehicles could be connected in a big line with connections like when towing a vehicle . The lead vehicle controls everyone's brakes and acceleration and off you go .

sounds a bit like a train eh

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@hingehead,

hingehead wrote:

Imagine the car equivalent of Bicycle Sharing Systems - but you don't even have to find a station, just make a request on your smartphone and in a few minutes it's at your door.

in neighbourhoods like mine - where car share is prevalent - you can find the vehicles everywhere. There is at least a dozen between my house and the subway - one is regularly kept on our block - a neighbour rents a parking spot to the group.

Now I just need the car to drive itself from the neighbour's house to mine to pick me up Shocked

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@Walter Hinteler,

Looks like it could use a little more development.

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@ehBeth,

I imagine that there would be lot fewer vehicles just 'sitting around'. In fact when you think about it we're massively over invested in cars when you think how much it costs to own and run one divided by the time you are actually using it. Even a four daily commute is under 20% utilisation.

A massive intelligently networked personal mass transit system might require fewer vehicles and less space to house them.

It is still hard to imagine peak hour disappearing but the nature of work is changing. Maybe telecommuting and flexible hours will mean the peaks and troughs of traffic load will even out a little requiring fewer total cars.

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By being "public" cars will not be taken care of by many users. Imagine one arrives to serve you and it's full of nasty stuff or falling apart.

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@hingehead,

With the prevalence of auto sharing here, there is already a decrease in private car ownership in my circle. Small cars for quick jaunts with friends, vans for trips to home hardware type stores ... auto shares have all sorts of vehicles available. You can book from an hour to seven days. It's pretty freaking awesome.

http://www.zipcar.ca/how

http://autoshare.com/fleet/ (there is one hatchback within a block right now, and a couple of hatchbacks and a minivan about a 5 minute walk away)

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@edgarblythe,

Autoshare and Zipcar have pretty clear rules about keeping vehicles clean. They have built-in plans for what to do if the vehicle is not clean when you pick it up (and the person who messes it up loses their membership).

It's not that different from using corporate fleet cars - keep them clean or get in ****.

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@edgarblythe,

I'd assumed 'companies' would manage 'fleets'. The cars themselves would be designed 'robustly'. Sensors would easily detect hygiene issues. Regardless they'd have all your details before you got in the car (including your credit card!). Vandals would be economic nitwits.

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Is anyone pondering the economic impact of driverless vehicles?

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