4 ways how driverless cars will drastically reshape the layout of cities

Driverless cars are coming. That’s an undisputed fact now.

Today I want to talk about how they will also change the layout of cities we live in.

This will be of course a gradual change. Since the replacement of traditional cars with driverless ones doesn’t happen overnight these changes will be long term as well.

What are the differences of a city where all cars are autonomous compared to today’s cities? Here are my top predictions with some illustrations to go with.

The cause is usually the latency how people react to the cars in front of them. The effect can be reduced if enough space is kept between the cars. But this works rather just as a theory. Humans are sometimes irrational and even though they know keeping more distance is helpful in the long run, they just usually race forward and slam the brakes, since they are already super annoyed.

Luckily it turns out that self driving cars are just the opposite. They are rationally controlled by algorithms and have learned via machine learning what is beneficial on the long term. And since autonomous cars will be all communicating to each other in real time they have basically unmeasurable reaction time and know already what happened kilometers in front of them. This helps a lot in reducing traffic jams. These cars will also have algorithms which define in real time which direction is the more eficient to go and if one of the roads starts getting congested it automatically search for alternatives.

More efficient intersections are also possible where an algorithms lets cars pass dynamically instead of static traffic lights. In summary the distribution of cars will improve and that means that they will require less space. What was once a three by three road will become a two by two etc… and the infrastructurs of traffic will be reduced. This reclaimed space can be used as public space, biking infrastructure, greenery or new housing.

Look at a typical street in an urban area. It usually has a pedestrian sidewalk on each side (about 3m wide each ) 2–4 lanes for cars (12–20m wide) and a row of parking on each side (3–5m wide each). That means that around 30% of its cross section is used for parking.

Autonomous cars are about to change this. Due to the fact that they’ll be able to move on their own, even without any person inside, means that the business model of these cars will change a lot. Many experts predict that the private ownership of a car will end. And when a vehicle is not bound to its owner, it means little to none of their time will be unused. They will just share the cars and order one like a taxi but with the fraction of the price, since no driver will be paid. Even if you’ll own a car, you can just set it up in a way that it earns you money while you work. It carries other people or goods.

All in all cars won’t stand in idle and that means that the need for parking spaces is dramatically reduced. They can be replaced with greenery, public spaces, cycle lanes, terraces for shops and cafes in the ground floors.

Traffic has its own daily and weekly rhythm. In summer, when there is no school there are less cars than in the other seasons. Weekdays mean more congestion than the weekend. There is also a daily cycle. Mornings and afternoons after work are the worst in terms of congestion. As you can see traffic is a very dynamic entity and it varies a lot during different times. Yet our roads are all static. It has the same number of lanes during the morning rush hour on Monday as well as on a Sunday night.

That means that streets and roads are most of their times underutilized. Imagine if roads behaved more dynamically. The direction of lanes could be changed. In the morning more lanes heading into the city and in the afternoon more lanes into the suburbs. Imagine if the roads could shrink in the weekend to provide more space for pedestrians. This is a viable possibility with autonomous cars. The crucial element is bidirectional communication between the cars and the road interface.

Traffic signs exist today in order to aid human drivers in navigating the city. Other signs signalise orders and instructions how to behave at the current locations. As they are visual clues meant to be read from a certain distance, they are big, colorful and easily recognasible.And in the age of driverless cars totally useless.

Autonomous vehicles are able to communicate with each other on the fly. They also know their way: thanks to gps, and a very detailed shared map built up collectively by all driverless cars they don’t need wayfinding signs. Traffic lights, today a symbol of motorisation is going to become obsolete as well. Intersections will be governed by a complex algorhythmic protocol which will strive to ensure the most optimal flow of traffic.

Today’s system where each of the converging roads get 20–30 seconds right of way will be replaced by a more dynamic system which reacts to traffic conditions constantly. The only traffic guiding elements that will stay will be the lights for pedestrians. They can still state their desire to cross the street through a traditional button (or maybe a smrtphone app?) and the algorhythm responsible for the intersection will allow passing at the convenient time. But all other traffic signs can disappear.

This can be of course only true when the switch to autonomous cars have completely undergone. In the transitional time when manned and unmanned cars share the road signs must be kept.

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