Stanford: Driver-Less Cars The Key To Less Traffic, Faster Commute

It is the future and the joy of going to work involves a quick car booking and then off to office in a driver-less car. To put things into perspective, you probably belong to the urban landscape where carpools and owning a car are redundant. To realize this scene, a team of researchers at MIT, Stanford, and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology suggest that the best way to cut down commuting time and city cars is to implement Autonomous Cars.

The picture painted by the researchers sounds too good to be true, and the thought of no parking fees, road taxes or speeding tickets is just too tempting. The truth of the matter is that this surreal scenario may not apply to every city, but nevertheless it gives us a glimmer of hope, that in the future there is a possibility of roads without vehicular congestion.

According to the paper released by the researchers, led by Kevin Spieser of MIT, given that the peak usage of cars is during the office rush hour, it is possible for a city like Singapore to cut down the number of vehicles by almost a third if they adopt the Autonomous Car system.

The reason behind choosing Singapore as the sample city is simple; it is an island and there is a limitation to how much the city can expand in the future. Hence, the solutions for the congestion have to be creative as well.

A majority of the cars stay idle for the better part of the day and it is at these times that the self-driving system makes more sense. The system also looks at saving citizens almost $15,000 a year in the form of car maintenance, parking fees and other incidentals. The only missing piece in the puzzle is the technology that will support autonomous driving. Till this bit is not realized, the study is just another story of wishful thinking.

VIA: Jalopnik, The Atlantic