Self-driving cars should be able to solve traffic and parking problems. However, this requires that most self-driving cars are used with ride-sharing to maximize the useful rides per car and to reduce the amount of parking that is needed.
Adam Millard-Ball, an associate professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, warns that if self-driving cars are allowed to circle cities while waiting for passengers, this will make traffic much worse.
Making Traffic Worse and Wasting Parking
Studies find that 30% of city traffic is already caused by people in cars looking for parking.
Self-driving cars that do not park would make traffic two times worse.
Adam Millard-Ball writes in Transport Policy on The autonomous vehicle parking problem. Millard-Ball recommends congestion pricing to penalize roaming self-driving cars that are not parking.
Traffic and Parking Can Be Much Better
Self-driving cars and networked cars can prevent traffic jams, reduce the need for parking and reduce the overall number of cars that are needed to efficiently move people around. The reduction of traffic jams involves robotic cars being able to safely follow more closely. Maximizing the number of rides while reducing the number of same cars will reduce transportation costs, traffic and parking demands.
Tesla and Elon Wants to Create a Hybrid model of Uber and AirBnb
Elon talked about a Tesla self-driving car future. Tesla will enable ride-hailing and ridesharing. There will be Tesla dedicated cars for ride-hailing and customers will be able to share their car at will, just like you share your house in Airbnb. It will be a combination of two models. Allowing customers to share their self-driving car will solve the parking and reduce traffic congestion.