I just received City Councilor Jake Auchincloss’s always informative email newsletter about what’s going on in the city. Here’s the most interesting item in this month’s issue….
Newton will join 13 other Greater Boston cities and towns, including Boston, in permitting companies developing autonomous vehicles (AVs) to test on public roads. Coordinated by the governor and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, the 14 jurisdictions will share one application portal. Each jurisdiction retains the right to exclude any company or use-case, even those approved under the application.
The AVs will have a human behind the steering wheel who is ready to assume control if necessary. They will not be carrying passengers or otherwise engaging in activities outside of testing, and they must prove competence through progressively more complex driving scenarios. The application process is being finalized, now, and I expect the first AVs from local companies like Optimus Ride and nuTonomy will be on Newton’s roads in 2018.
The benefits to Newton are three-fold. First, the city can shape protocols before they become codified. For example, the Newton Fire Department recommended that fire fighters from all jurisdictions receive training in how to safely extract persons from damaged AVs, which may require cutting through hardware that is different than on regular vehicles. That training will now be standard.
Second, city officials can learn first-hand about regulating a technology that will re-shape mobility patterns in the next decade. The Director of Transportation Planning noted that traffic could drastically improve if AVs operated as a shared fleet with no deadheading. A few companies, like General Motors or Optimus Ride, would deploy fleets in the Metro West, renting out rides the way Uber and Lyft do today. The city or state, which would be able to monitor both the location and occupancy of AVs, could tax the companies on a scale that promotes driving with higher occupancy and parking where there is lower congestion.
The converse of that efficient scenario, though, could arise if AVs were individually owned and operated. Traffic would worsen if parking regulations did not deter owners from having their AVs circulate, with zero occupancy, to avoid paying for parking.
The third way that Newton benefits is by burnishing its reputation as a forward-thinking city in a progressive region. MIT sends the overwhelming majority of its AV engineers to the West Coast. That’s a missed opportunity for Greater Boston: we should be a hub for this fast-growing and high-paying industry.
The biggest risk is human error. Testing standards assume that having humans behind the wheel of an AV, ready to assume control, is safer than either fully human or fully autonomous driving. That logic seems spurious to me: many humans get distracted even when they are driving – how many of us could stay fully alert for many hours behind a wheel we’re not even allowed to touch?
And, even if the human is diligently paying attention, the reaction time to (1) process an anomaly, (2) physically engage with the wheel and brakes, and (3) maneuver to safety seems like it would be longer than for either a fully human or fully autonomous operator. Are we fooling ourselves into thinking that we’re in a Goldilocks zone of safety for Man + Machine, when we’re actually setting up humans to fail? This risk should be re-evaluated as testing gets underway.
Jerry, thanks for posting this. I have to ask in all seriousness something I’ve not been able to get an answer to: What is the point?
As I’ve mentioned before, I love to drive, even just down to the grocery store. I love turning the wheel, navigating, miss having a standard shift because it’s even more interactive driving, I once drove halfway across country in less than two days through all kinds of traffic, for hours on end, even the demolition derby that is downtown Cleveland and only stopped because I had reached the coast and water. So, I will never, ever be sitting like a crash test dummy in one of these supposed ‘cars’.
What is the point? I can only guess that what’s ‘driving’ this is the big multi-nationals hoping that eventually they can get out of having to pay real people to deliver their packages. Why else are they doing this when there are flying cars and rocket jet packs still waiting to be made? Truly, driverless cars are just so…boring a notion. Plus, they can kill people crossing the street with their bike. While every new invention seems to come with its dangers, if we’re going to take those risks, really, why not take the risks on new technology and inventions that are truly a leap ahead, not duplicating an existing product and making it even dumber and rife with the inevitable problems we’re already going through now?
@Mark Marderosian – Yes, there’s certain kinds of driving that I enjoy too. The vast majority of my miles though involve rt95/93/495 in heavy traffic. If somebody could wave a magic wand and put me in the backseat for that commute where I could read, sleep, or daydream – sign me up!
I think that scenario is still quite a ways off but we’re seeing the early steps now.
… and sure. If you have a flying car and/or a jet pack in the meantime, sign me up for one of those too 😉
Mark,
The point is to reduce driving costs down so its cheaper to “hail a ride” than to own a car.
Your car sits idle 95% of the time. Autonomous Taxis theoretically can operate so cheaply and efficiently that most people wont need a car (unless travelling out of town).
This would be a god-send for lower-income folk, seniors if the rides are cheap enough. Would be life-changing for some seniors and mobility challenged
The average American driver spends 293 hours per year driving. Perhaps Mark’s favorite activity is driving, but most people would prefer reading, sleeping, stamp collecting, writing, drawing, surfing the internet, texting, etc. In the future, Mark can still drive, but the rest of us have the choice to read, stamp collect, write, etc…
Of course, the “reading, sleeping, etc…” could also be done on public transportation. What we need instead of these vehicles is a real investment in upgrading public transit and keep single use occupancy cars off the road. Just my two cents.
First, let’s stop using the term “autonomous” cars. At the moment, the better term is “augmented” smart vehicles. The concept of 100 percent free-standing autonomous cars is a misconception of the reality in the next 20-30 years.
Like our house alarms, there will be always be a central monitoring center because all digital devices require human intervention at some time. In the case of house alarms, they require resetting when they are tripped, new sensors when they malfunction, and software upgrades when there is a bug etc. With a complex device like an augmented smart car, there are sensors, cellular transmitters, batteries, and tires (especially with Newton potholes) that will require repair/replacement from time to time. Cars are not going to be free of human involvement for a long, long time. Knowing this, many more people will have confidence in these vehicles when they hit the streets of Newton.
Second, if we think more broadly about mobility, Newton could become a world leader in “augmented” smart vehicles if we focused first on a few obvious mass transportation opportunities at the neighborhood level. Why don’t we start with a centrally managed jitney (a small bus) intra-city system (with a proven mobility vendor) who could determine the most valuable, high priority routes, such as
1) Needham Street and Newton Highlands “T” Stop or Needham train stops for retail workers;
2) West Newton trains and Newton Center, Waban and north of the Pike for white-collar residents who work within walking distance of North Station;
3) Star Market, WholeFoods and other supermarkets and the Newton Senior Center for seniors who want to go shopping.
Knowing which routes are most valuable for our residents, we could license these routes to Google, Uber, Telsa, nuTonomy, GM, Optimus etc. (yeah revenue!) to create a global test bed for next-generation “augmented” smart vehicles. Eventually, these could become regular and dependable routes with eager riders. But let’s think strategically about mass transportation first as opposed to allowing individual smart cars driving willy-nilly around the city and adding to traffic congestion.
Let’s work together to assess the new smart mobility opportunities for the city of Newton.
See https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2018/01/08/we-need-vision-auto-jitneys-and-livability.
@Amy – we need both. Not everyone lives and works in easy distance of public transit – and that’s unlikely to change even if public transit gets the upgrades that one can realistically expect. And, of course, not all public transit is handicapped accessible. If there were autonomous vehicles that I could catch on my own schedule, I’d be happy to share with other passengers going in the same direction and have a few extra stop. And public transit isn’t realistic for my grocery shopping needs, but I’d be happy to ride share for that as well.
There are those of us who could comfortably use a mix of public transit and ride share, and then happily ditch our cars, if it were available and cost-effective.
Like it or not, I predict these “vehicles” eventually will be public transportation. Think a self-driving Indonesian bimo. The good news is they probably won’t be run by the government. So, we won’t have to make real investment (bail them out), they will take charge cards, and they will be clean. The future is going to be wonderful.
Jeffery,
The same way Uber has taken over the Taxi industry, I can’t wait for autonomous cars/minivans to take over public transportation.
Its been poorly run and managed and I don’t see that changing in the near future. Looking forward to the future..
If a car ride from A to B can cost the same as a bus ride, I don’t see the need for many people to own a car
If your kid has a concussion from falling out of the tree in your backyard, do you really want to wait for 1)an ambulance 2)Uber to pick you both up or 3)Do you want to throw him in the back of the car and drive to the ER?
My car isn’t going away. In fact, I might someday choose to be buried in it!!!!!
I don’t think that private autonomous vehicles could become competitive in price with public transit.
@MMQC – that would be the ideal, if they cost more than public transit so people with access would use it, but were less expensive than car ownership (including costs for maintenance and insurance) for people who don’t make many trips/week.
My comment was in response was to Bugek saying “If a car ride from A to B can cost the same as a bus ride.” I don’t see how that could be possible if you want to leave your neighborhood…
Mary,
An autonomous taxi literally has almost no running costs beyond maintenance.
No labor costs, free electricity to run the car, likely powered by solar. Operating 24×7.
In town rides and to/from Boston should have no problem competing with public transportation costs
Mark M – and others – “The Point” that has not been mentioned yet is Saving Lives! LOTS of them. Human drivers are not (on the whole) very good drivers.
AI / computer / servo controlled vehicles will still have accidents and people will be killed; but in Far, Far Smaller numbers than the carnage that human controlled driving give us.
Another point is improved efficiency – one lane of autonomous / efficiently managed highway traffic can carry the same number of vehicles as 3 lanes with humans in control.
The cost savings worldwide due to improved efficiency, lower costs and lower insurance premiums will be monumental and a great boon to macro-economic conditions across the globe.
The picture painted of this beautiful world in which we can travel anywhere at no cost is wonderful. And I think it would be great to live in such a place. Life will be perfect, we won’t have to work, poverty will be vanquished, everyone will live in peace and harmony, the wolf will live with the lamb… yadda, yadda, yadda.
Remember when we talked about how the world will be a much better place when people could have access to the world’s libraries and knowledge whenever they wanted? How we’d all be better educated and life would be perfect? What’s the result? A fragmented society in which facts no longer seem to matter in decision making. Everyone has their own facts supplied by their own brokers. Isn’t the future grand?
We let the tech companies set policy, and now we’re trying to catch up. That’s why the founder of Facebook spent two days on Capitol Hill trying to answer questions from people who have only a rudimentary understanding of his business. We shouldn’t make this mistake again.
Ther are costs to AVs, there always will be. It may be money, but it could be in the form of time or even in the form of isolation. We need to study it and make decisions on it.
@Richard Saunders
You acknowledge AI cars will have accidents, and will probably kill people. My question is thus, who goes to court, and of what consequence? Same issue for speeding violations.
Also, as you seem quite informed, I would love to know how AI deals with broken down cars, pot holes and traditional humans signaling traffic flow when required (e.g broken down traffic lights, construction).
Agree with Chuck. Newton seems to be in “rush to decision making” mode on this subject and overtime parking legislation, among other things – except on recreational marijuana sales.
The city council and the administration need to slow down to give proper attention to study potential unknown consequences of their actions.
Actually @marti, I agree that we should be testing them here. I just want to make sure we use this opportunity wisely and learn from it. We need to be talking about policy and not just act as if this will all be fine if we just let the tech industry do its thing.
Great to see the city is focusing on issues which will benefit the vast majority of residents and hopefully attract tech companies here. Much better than spending time pandering to a small yet very vocal minority.
@Bugek transportation matters for everyone. If any city needed to rely in single-occupancy vehicles rather than public transportation, we’d all be at a standstill. Catering to different forms (walking, biking, buses, trains, ride sharing) IS about the majority, it isn’t pandering.
However, handing over massive swaths of public land to private transit or private transportation businesses would, to my eyes, be a lousy use of publically owned resources. It would be nice if drivers paid their fair share and agreed to a VMT or higher gas tax.
Case in point is our neighbor, Watertown.
“During peak morning traffic on Mount Auburn Street, 3 percent of vehicles are MBTA buses. However, those buses carry 56 percent of people on the roadway”
Putting all those people in personal AVs would just clog the roads, no matter how efficiently they run. We would also lose something very human about interacting with others. I’m not saying that buses are perfect, nor am I saying that they offer a pleasant ride for many people (as they’re configured today). But we need to solve the right problems rather than just create new ones.
Now, imagine if we had AV bus systems and those buses were a lot nicer. Imagine if they operated more like the T, with climate controlled waiting areas, more frequent pickups and drop offs and their own lanes to avoid traffic. Imagine if loading didn’t require each person to stop and pay, but people could just get on and off as necessary. All of this is possible, we just have to build it.
http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/news/20180404/bus-lanes-coming-to-mount-auburn-could-improve-commute-for-thousands