by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright July 2014
Driverless cars are going to be a social revolution as well as a technological one. The social revolution is that most driverless cars are going to be treated like taxis -- they will not be individually owned. When someone is ready for a ride, they will app in some fashion and a driverless car will drive up from some holding area it has been waiting in and be ready for them to use. They will take it to a destination, hop out, and be done with it. Using a car will be as simple as that. (This 6 Sep 14 Economist article, Smartphones on wheels, in their Technology Quarterly Q3 2014 issue, is the first mention I've seen in mainstream press about this way of implementing driverless cars.)
When cars become driverless and taxi-like, they will blend in with other transportation modes like busses and trains. There will be less difference in picking one style over any other. In fact, the difference between them is likely to blur. Walking and bicycles will remain different. Light rail sharing streets may become anachronistic again because the big lumbering trains can't dodge like nimbler street vehicles can. If light rail survives, the street cars will become smaller and act independently so they can dodge.
Driverless delivery vehicles will proliferate. The current interest in delivery drones is an example of what is coming. Wheeled versions will also become ubiquitous. The next challenge is "the final meter" -- how to get packages off the vehicle and on a doorstep or inside a door. One solution: standard delivery doors on habitations that delivery vehicles can open.
Driverless cars are mostly going to be owned by local governments or companies that lease some kind of franchise from the government. This will make the ownership much like rental cars today. And one of the big issues is going to be keeping them clean and running well. Another issue will be having enough to deal with surge traffic times.
With the above in mind, here are some abuses that come to mind:
o Users making a pig sty of the cars, and the companies not cleaning them up quickly. This can be reduced a lot of if the cars have cleanliness sensors and the companies running them pay for vigilance.
o Homeless making homes in them. Today there are public restrooms that get abused by people treating them like personal rooms. This can likely happen with driverless cars. Like with littering in the cars, this is something that sensors and vigilance can prevent. What can stymie this is the community getting from-the-heart feelings that these homeless car squatters are being abused when they get kicked out of the cars. It's not a feeling likely to become popular, but the "feeling for others" world is full of surprises.
o Doing drugs and sex in them. This is likely to become a big issue. This happens when the users feel like they are "the rich man in the big black limonene" while they are in the driverless car, and ready to party hearty.
o Parties in trains/buses. Relating to the abuse above, the parties can happen in larger vehicles such as trains and buses. In these this can become a marketable feature. There will be party trains and buses. These will become like cruise liners.
o How will using them be priced? Surge pricing? Waiting in line for one? How to price driverless cars will be a chronic issue that never solves to everyone's liking. One issue is the "pay more or wait longer?" issue. This one will be solved with different categories of driverless cars -- commodity and luxury -- those who would rather wait go commodity while those who are in a hurry go luxury.
On farms it is likely that much of the farming equipment will also become driverless. This will mesh with "creations" doing much of the heavy lifting in the business of getting farm stock grown and food items harvested. An example of that happening today is Big Data being used to manage what varieties of plants are planted even within different areas of the same field.
People will still care an awful lot about how their food is grown. And there will still be a lot of romantic feelings about the farming lifestyle. But there will become more and more of a disconnect between what customers think is happening and what is really happening. It is quite likely that there will be a lot of difference between what is advertised as food growing techniques and the harsh reality of what is really happening. There will be scandals, as there have been in the past. This is because the public enjoys a juicy food growing scandal. It is something they can relate to.
Taxi drivers come first to mind as a group/guild/union that will strenuously resist driverless cars. They will do so as it becomes clear that most of the driverless cars will be used in the interchangeable fashion that taxis are, not the "I own this, I drive this." fashion of today's drivered cars. The taxi drivers are going to see competition. They will quickly be joined by delivery truck driver unions as the driverless delivery truck usefulness becomes tangible.
Taxi guilds have been around a long time. They have a lot of influence on their regulatory environment. So expect that their influence will substantially shape the rituals for using driverless cars. They will work to make the rituals more cumbersome, and demand part of the income stream. Parents of teenagers, on the other hand, will love the driverless cars. They will intervene to keep the rituals simple and direct and the cars widely accessible. They will intervene during the introduction. For the first generation parents these driverless cars will be a godsend. But subsequent generations will pay less attention because they will be taken for granted by the parents. The taxi guilds, if they are still around, will continue to pay close attention.
Today's big event venues have lots of parking, and lots of vehicles discharging people, and lots of people parking then walking in. As driverless cars become more like taxis how to get to these events will change. Large capacity buses will be used a lot more. Those will link up with driverless at less congested locations, load up, then head for the event. Unless... the driverless cars have the ability to self link up so they can get to the big event venue more efficiently.
Real driving skills will decline. Fewer people will get driving licences and when they do they will use them much more for recreation than for day-to-day transportation.
But, driving will remain alive and well on the video and movie screens. Driving in computer games will remain popular. So will Fast and Furious-style movies where lots of stunt driving is mixed with lots of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Fast and Furious movies will become a genre that fills the social niche that Western movies did in the first half of the 20th century.