Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse

mixed use spaces that allow people to walk to stuff.

They are real game changers!

Actually good trains and bus systems, actually good bike infrastructure, mixed use spaces that allow people to walk to stuff.

You forgot the single biggest factor: quit mandating low density. In order for walkability to happen, more trip origins and destinations need to be closer together.

Nah, bro. We need wider streets and more cars. That will surely reduce traffic.

Seems like they thought that ride-sharing an Uber would reduce traffic, but the cheaper prices just ended up with more people using ride-hailing services instead of public transport.

Full article text: ##Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse ###Our research at MIT helped make the case for ride-sharing. We were wrong. We don’t want to make the same mistake with robotaxis Carlo Ratti, John Rossant Sep. 16, 2023

A rush of feet, a cone, and screech! The pinnacle of human technological prowess grinds to a halt.

Activists in San Francisco have discovered that they can immobilize robotaxis with nothing more than a simple orange traffic cone.

This attention-grabbing, legally ambiguous stunt has succeeded in showcasing the limits of autonomous vehicle technology. But it may ultimately miss the bigger picture.

The real threat from robotaxis is the underlying technology. Once these cars inevitably learn to get around the traffic cones and gain the public’s trust, their convenience could seduce us into vastly overusing our cars.

The result? An artificial-intelligence-powered nightmare of traffic, technically perfect but awful for our cities.

Why do we believe this? Because it has already come to pass with ride-sharing.

In the 2010s, the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where one of us serves as the director, was at the forefront of using Big Data to study how ride-hailing and ride-sharing could make our streets cleaner and more efficient. The findings appeared to be astonishing: With minimal delays to passengers, we could match riders and reduce the size of New York City taxi fleets by 40%. More people could get around in fewer cars for less money. We could reduce car ownership, and free up curbs and parking lots for new uses.

This utopian vision was not only compelling but within reach. After publishing our results, we started the first collaboration between MIT and Uber to research a then-new product: Uber Pool (now rebranded UberX Share), a service that allows riders to share cars when heading to similar destinations for a lower cost.

Alas, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Our research was technically right, but we had not taken into account changes in human behavior. Cars are more convenient and comfortable than walking, buses and subways — and that is why they are so popular. Make them even cheaper through ride-sharing and people are coaxed away from those other forms of transit.

This dynamic became clear in the data a few years later: On average, ride-hailing trips generated far more traffic and 69% more carbon dioxide than the trips they displaced.

We were proud of our contribution to ride-sharing but dismayed to see the results of a 2018 study that found that Uber Pool was so cheap it increased overall city travel: For every mile of personal driving it removed, it added 2.6 miles of people who otherwise would have taken another mode of transportation.

As robotaxis are on the cusp of proliferating across the world, we are about to repeat the same mistake, but at a far greater scale. The futuristic allure of autonomy — and the enormous profits it could generate for its creators — will be hard for governments and the public to resist. But we cannot let a shiny new piece of technology drive us into an epic traffic jam of our own making.

The best way to make urban mobility accessible, efficient and green is not about new technologies — neither self-driving cars nor electric ones — but old ones. Buses, subways, bikes and our own two feet are cleaner, cheaper and more efficient than anything Silicon Valley has dreamt up.

What’s the Cadillac of reducing our dependence on Cadillacs? The good old-fashioned bus.

This is not to say self-driving technology has no role in the future, just a different (and perhaps a bit less lucrative) one than GM-backed Cruise and Alphabet-backed Waymo seem to be currently focused on.

Autonomous technology could, for example, allow cities to offer more buses, shuttles and other forms of public transit around the clock. That’s because the availability of on-demand AVs could assure “last-mile” connections between homes and transit stops. It could also be a godsend for older people and those with disabilities. However, any scale-up of AVs should be counterbalanced with investments in mass transit and improvements in walkability. Above all, we must put in place smart regulatory and tax regimes that allow all sustainable mobility modes — including autonomous services — to scale safely and intelligently. They should include, for example, congestion fees to discourage overuse of individual vehicles.

To get new technologies right, our cities might follow the example of Singapore. Thanks to its Smart Nation program, the Asian city is now at the forefront of experimentation with autonomy. Yet, like San Francisco, it has experienced hiccups with its self-driving car pilot programs; young people have taken to confusing the vehicles by throwing balls or, more boldly, getting in front of them and dancing. The first reaction of the government, unamused, was to mull a law banning the harassment of self-driving cars.

However, unlike San Francisco, Singapore has little to worry about in the long run because it already has robust systems to control traffic — a highly efficient mass transit network and a system of Electronic Road Pricing that dynamically taxes cars to prevent congestion.

These types of measures are easier said than done. To pass even one such efficient, top-down measure in an American city would be no small feat. But this is still a gold standard we should strive to emulate.

The allure of the self-driving car is that it will liberate us: from thought, from action, from responsibility. But that is not how new technology, from the wheel to the internet, has ever worked. By unlocking new possibilities, technological progress forces us to make new, difficult choices about how to manage it. The next few years will be crucial; we all need to be alert to the unintended consequences of this technology.

Self-driving cars are coming, but it is all of us who need to take the wheel.

Carlo Ratti is a practicing architect and a professor at MIT, where he directs the Senseable City Lab. He is a co-author of “Atlas of the Senseable City.” John Rossant is founder and CEO of CoMotion, a conference and media platform focused on future mobility.

What if we had Uber, but with big cars that can hold 30 to 200 people, take people along fixed popular routes, don't charge ridiculous "market price" fees, don't require tips and arrive every 30 minutes or better so you wouldn't need an app to hail one over? 🚏🚌💨 ^/j

The correct way to fix traffic is to stop designing the world around cars to the exclusion of absolutely everything the fuck else including humans.

And bike lanes, bike sharing etc.

...including working on security measures to ensure that people feel safe using them

Self-driving callable buses might not be a horrible thing. You open up an app that says I need a ride It tells you where within a mile to walk and send something on its way to drop by and pick you up.

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The actual study modeled a 40% reduction in number of taxis on the road when hailing was made more efficient, with carpooling passengers, and a re-purposing of parking space:

In the 2010s, the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where one of us serves as the director, was at the forefront of using Big Data to study how ride-hailing and ride-sharing could make our streets cleaner and more efficient. The findings appeared to be astonishing: With minimal delays to passengers, we could match riders and reduce the size of New York City taxi fleets by 40%. More people could get around in fewer cars for less money. We could reduce car ownership, and free up curbs and parking lots for new uses.

But it turns out that just like with widening highways, human behavior responds to the increased efficiency by stepping up the demand to reach the previous equilibrium again.

I imagine that the fact that you call cars with an app instead of waiting for an empty taxi to pass by is more efficient, and you can have less cars for the same number of passengers. Basically having less empty taxis on the road.

I know it's a stretch, but this is the only way I can see Uber reducing traffic.

Because mainstream media said so!

Tbf uber pool DID help in theory alleviate a bit of traffic but americans are allergic to sharing rides. And even then buses are several times more efficient.

Uber does have a carpool option. But I'm not sure how often it gets used.

I don't understand how anyone ever thought they could reduce traffic. Even if they only served people who would otherwise have driven, a cab replacing an A to B and a C to D journey has to do three journeys to replace those two (A to B, B to C, and C to D). It was always going to increase traffic.

The text of the article explains that it's based on reducing the number of taxis (or cars for hire generally) on the road, reducing parking spots, and increasing carpooling:

In the 2010s, the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where one of us serves as the director, was at the forefront of using Big Data to study how ride-hailing and ride-sharing could make our streets cleaner and more efficient. The findings appeared to be astonishing: With minimal delays to passengers, we could match riders and reduce the size of New York City taxi fleets by 40%. More people could get around in fewer cars for less money. We could reduce car ownership, and free up curbs and parking lots for new uses.

This utopian vision was not only compelling but within reach. After publishing our results, we started the first collaboration between MIT and Uber to research a then-new product: Uber Pool (now rebranded UberX Share), a service that allows riders to share cars when heading to similar destinations for a lower cost.

It goes on to explain that it's a problem of induced demand (same phenomenon that causes highway expansion not to actually help with congestion in the long term):

Alas, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Our research was technically right, but we had not taken into account changes in human behavior. Cars are more convenient and comfortable than walking, buses and subways — and that is why they are so popular. Make them even cheaper through ride-sharing and people are coaxed away from those other forms of transit.

This dynamic became clear in the data a few years later: On average, ride-hailing trips generated far more traffic and 69% more carbon dioxide than the trips they displaced.

We were proud of our contribution to ride-sharing but dismayed to see the results of a 2018 study that found that Uber Pool was so cheap it increased overall city travel: For every mile of personal driving it removed, it added 2.6 miles of people who otherwise would have taken another mode of transportation.

Idea is that instead of 4 cars containing 1 person in each of them you get 1 car with 4 people in it. No idea how well it works in practice though, I assume most people who already drive will want to keep driving alone even if it is more expensive.

Not only that, it also takes passengers away from public transit because door to door is more convenient than waiting for a bus or changing lines in between.

You've never heard about capitalism? Zero labor cost means it's cheaper to have 100 taxis in your fleet when you would normally have 10.

If anything, I see it becoming the board game Othello to a degree, the big companies flood every inch of road with their cars instead of the other guys. I'd even see them using groups of their robo cars to create intentional traffic for their competitors, only to then communicate back to their own fleet where the only viable route through town is. This way it's like a tooth eat and if you want to get across town, you know it will take you 15 mins with Y brand and an hour plus with A brand.

Wake up and smell the death march called endless corporate growth.

It's almost like people don't enjoy sharing rides with crackheads that don't really reach their destination...

Need to undo this 1950s era of urban planning and transportation

I was a kid when I saw it, but wasn’t that one of the end messages of the movie, Roger Rabbit?

Here ya go https://archive.md/dJLiu

The original concept of Uber was ride-sharing, where it would match up riders going to a similar destination, like the airport. But I haven't seen that option pop up in quite a while.

Yeah that's a silly statement, guarantee there was little altruism when they, like most, started their business.

In their beginning, Uber was a special purpose vehicle for Big Tech (=their investors) to perform political changes in all kinds of foreign countries, making them compliant, using methods that the others couldn't use openly.

Could you talk more about this / link things to read about it?

Oh god thank you for that depressing image

On the one hand, you are right. On the other hand, will the consumers of robotaxis want to use small cars or will they push for full size ones?