Lots of factors to look at in how this plays out in very dense and transit oriented cities like NY and large European cities. There is the potential for major problems with traffic as people move from taking transit to riding in a self-driving car. The subway infrastructure moves a lot of people, and if you move a lot of them up to the street level, the streets may not be able to cope. A lot of plusses and minuses come to mind.
1. Until all cars are self-driving, we will still need traffic lights, and so intersections will still be a big bottleneck.
2. Self driving cars may be able however to maintain closer following distances since they have quicker reaction times.
3. Jaywalking has the potential to cause huge traffic problems because pedestrians will know that self driving cars won't hit them.
4. Parking can be made more efficient by sharing cars. This is already happening in Berlin and other cities with floating carsharing systems.
5. Parking can also be made a lot more efficient if there are self-driving parking lots or areas marked off on the street, and the self-driving cars have a protocol to cooperate with parking. Parallel parked cars can be parked bumper-to-bumper, and they all just scoot out of the way to let someone out. In a lot, cars can park much more closely packed left-right since doors don't need to open, and the driving lanes can be reduced or eliminated if cars cooperate to get out of the way when one has to leave. This may free up street area to add extra driving lanes.
6. More people will probably share rides with a self driving Uber Pool/Lyft line type model.
7. If cars are shared, a lot of the fleet can be very small two or even one seat cars that take up less space in the road and parking.
8. Car interiors will resemble an office workstation. With mobile internet, very long commutes will be acceptable if the car is a fairly comfortable mobile office.
1. Until all cars are self-driving, we will still need traffic lights, and so intersections will still be a big bottleneck.
2. Self driving cars may be able however to maintain closer following distances since they have quicker reaction times.
3. Jaywalking has the potential to cause huge traffic problems because pedestrians will know that self driving cars won't hit them.
4. Parking can be made more efficient by sharing cars. This is already happening in Berlin and other cities with floating carsharing systems.
5. Parking can also be made a lot more efficient if there are self-driving parking lots or areas marked off on the street, and the self-driving cars have a protocol to cooperate with parking. Parallel parked cars can be parked bumper-to-bumper, and they all just scoot out of the way to let someone out. In a lot, cars can park much more closely packed left-right since doors don't need to open, and the driving lanes can be reduced or eliminated if cars cooperate to get out of the way when one has to leave. This may free up street area to add extra driving lanes.
6. More people will probably share rides with a self driving Uber Pool/Lyft line type model.
7. If cars are shared, a lot of the fleet can be very small two or even one seat cars that take up less space in the road and parking.
8. Car interiors will resemble an office workstation. With mobile internet, very long commutes will be acceptable if the car is a fairly comfortable mobile office.