The Future of Driverless Vehicles (Roundtable)

Posted on February 12, 2016 by nazanin

Aims and Objectives

The aim of this report is to provide an analysis of potential benefits of driverless cars. To make it clear as an example we can take the example of driverlesstaxi services to replace private car commuter trips in metropolitan areas due to the increasing need in the modern world of today.It develops a legal and regulatory framework for dynamic allocation of driverless cars to the world of technology which is not a barrier to the testing of this creative vehicles on public roads in near future.

This review concludes that expanding such kinds of driverless cars will be of good help when it comes to the passenger trips, empty-vehicle routing and multi-criteria evaluation with regard to passenger waiting time, trip time and fleet size. Using a demonstration of running personal trip request for metropolitan areas and an exact traffic network demonstration, varying frameworks (different levels of passenger waiting time at origin and the excess in travel time) are compared with regard to passenger travel time, number of cars needed and vehicle mileage. For the nextstep the environmental influences of the varying framework are evaluated and measured by the use of life cycle approach.

This makes a big opportunity for the whole world to assign in forming a good future of these breathtaking developments and the Governments, working with the abdicated executions, must be ready to play its part in making this dream comes true.It’s considered that the developed industrial countries own the most welcoming regulatory environments for development of this technology.

This paper is about to exposes the Government’s program to simplify the production of vehicles and examining in which the driver is able to pick their travel time in ways that have never previously been possible. Having considered that a driver spends, in average, a long time equals six working weeks driving a year, this technology stands as a real opportunity. Moreover, automated cars which never get worn or knock down can be as a key to fundamentally improve road safety. This document sets out the best possible structures to back up the testing of automated vehicles to persuade the largest global businesses.

As the other objective of this paper it can be pointed out that they contribute so positively to the development of this technology. The knowledge and experience having been brought here can make huge benefit and will help to take the technology from the test track to the urban laboratory. Being supported by the right investment it can find the right way to industrial and regulatory conditions for building the automotive technologies of the future.

The researches claim that an automated transport system potentially brings about an on-demand door-to-door transport with a service of high level, by the use of less than one tenth of today’s personal cars and parking lots. In order to make an environmental profit and lower level of congestion an automated transport system requests the users to agree on ride-sharing, allowing a maximum 30% increase of their travel time (15% on average) and a start time window of 10 minutes.

In a plot where drivers are not willing to accept any decrease in the level of services, that’s to say, no ride-sharing and no delay, empty vehicle drive of automated transport system would end in exceeded road traffic which will influence on the environment and congestion. Visualizing the future of driverless electrical cars an automated system and electrical vehicle technology seems to be a “perfect” match which indeed would share a fundamentally helpful transport system in the world.

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Driverless Car

Posted on February 12, 2016 by nazanin

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Driverless cars sense their surroundings using technology such as lidar, radar, GPS, and computer vision.

The sensory information is then processed to navigate appropriate pathways for the vehicle to take, avoiding any obstacles and also obeying the road signs.

The car uses a digital map, which can be constantly updated according to sensory input. This allows the vehicle to adapt to changing situations, as well as travel through previously unknown territories.

Advantages of Driverless Cars

  • Travelers would be able to journey overnight and sleep for the duration.
  • Speed limits could be increased to reflect the safer driving, shortening journey times
  • Parking the vehicle and difficult maneuvering would be less stressful and require no special skills. The car could even just drop you off and then go and park itsel
  • Efficient travel also means fuel savings, cutting costs.

Disadvantages of Driverless Cars

  • A computer malfunction, even just a minor glitch, could cause worse crashes than anything that human error might bring about
  • The cars would rely on the collection of location and user information, creating major privacy concerns.
  • There are problems currently with autonomous vehicles operating in certain types of weather. Heavy rain interferes with roof-mounted laser sensors, and snow can interfere with its cameras
  • Reading human road signs is challenging for a robot.

What is the future of driverless cars?

Ford is now testing fully autonomous cars in a fake city in Michigan. Meanwhile, one of Google’s driverless cars was pulled over in Mountain View, Calif., last week for impeding traffic. What can we expect from the imminent flock of self-driving cars?

If the several companies already testing their self-driving automobile technology are to be believed, the future is now. Driverless cars could be integrated into traffic within the decade.

Ford announced Friday that it will begin testing self-driving cars at a new compound called Mcity, a 32-acre fake metropolis in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Mcity is a collaboration of Ford, the University of Michigan, and the state’s Department of Transportation. The Detroit car company won’t be the only manufacturer to use the compound; it is one of many automakers that have poured $1 million into the testing grounds, which include traffic lights, pedestrian zones, storefronts, and other real-life elements.

“We’ve been testing [autonomous] cars in the real world, but using a place like Mcity will allow us to refine our algorithms and better calibrate car sensors by repeating specific situations in a reliable way,” Ford’s vice president of global product development Raj Nair told USA Today.

Meanwhile 2,400 miles away, the Web giant Google is testing its own line of self-driving cars. Google has been testing autonomous cars for more than seven years, mostly in Mountain View, California but also recently in Austin, Texas.

Google’s driverless cars made the news Thursday when one was pulled over by police. No, it wasn’t speeding – it was going 24 miles per hour in a 35 mph zone. Fortunately for Google, no citation was issued, and the company’s driving record remains pristine.

“Driving too slowly? Bet humans don’t get pulled over for that too often,” the company wrote in a Google Plus post. “After 1.2 million miles of autonomous driving (that’s the human equivalent of 90 years of driving experience), we’re proud to say we’ve never been ticketed!”

A number of reports suggest that Apple is also getting into the autonomous car business. The computer company has been hiring car engineers, and there have been rumors of a facility similar to Mcity just outside of San Francisco.

Tesla, Elon Musk’s electric car venture, just unveiled an autopilot feature in its cars’ software that steers and changes lanes without human intervention. This signals a more gradual approach to driverless technology, though it seems that Google’s all-in efforts will reach the finish line sooner.

According to Robin Chase, the former CEO of Zipcar, it could be either heaven or its opposite. In the latter scenario, the masses will flock to purchase the autonomous cars, which will be sent out to run errands on their own, and traffic will become irrevocably congested.

“If single-occupancy vehicles are the bane of our congested highways and cities right now, imagine the congestion when we pour in unfettered zero-occupancy vehicles,” she wrote in CityLab.

Additionally, the rollout of driverless cars could have a dire impact on public transportation – particularly buses – and the low-income residents who depend on it, especially in smaller cities where transportation infrastructure is already lacking. Even if driverless cars provide ride services cheaper than taxis and Ubers, it’ll still be much more expensive than a month of rides with an unlimited card.

But if autonomous cars could supplement, and not compete with, existing public transit systems, then the opposite could happen: roads could become less congested because fewer people would have cars (this has already started to happen with the rise of Uber and Lyft), and fares would become just as affordable as buses.

“While the hell vision results in gridlock everywhere, this heaven vision takes all those personal cars – now parked 95 percent of the time – off the streets and out of garages,” Chase continued. “We can repurpose those lanes to trees, bike lanes, sidewalks, play spaces, bike parking, café expansion, community gardens, or even swimming pools.”

But an effective system calls for effective regulation, and the public sector has been struggling to keep up with recent innovations such as Uber. Even if autonomous cars are to adequately replace buses with lowered operational costs, there’s still the question of optimal routing. Also, will city governments be ready to provide subsidies so the service can be affordable to everyone?

Yonah Freemark of The Transport Politic suggests that it is too soon for a complete upheaval of the transportation system in favor of self-driving cars and other technologies.

“New technologies offer the opportunity to change the way we think about transportation and likely offer us opportunities to improve our cities,” he wrote.

“But the public sector, and the civic sector in general, must continue to play the key role in planning, identifying essential investments, and aiding those who are in need.”

Driverless Cars Get Green Light on German Autobahn
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