People have been longing for driverless cars for a long time with the purpose of a better life. Next time when you miss your alarm in the morning, you will not worry as before because you can book a driverless car while ting your shoes. On the customized car you may also be able to buy a hot dog and dream that you will never be afraid of hurrying to school. Unfortunately, due to many reasons, this new transport technique is still under experiment. However, before knowing whether these cars take effect, there has already been some voices claiming that driverless cars cannot make our life better such as they maybe cannot dispose of the congestion. Therefore, the aim of this essay is to summarize one of those protesters’ article and then show my response to it.
“They will spare the world neither traffic congestion nor infrastructure expense”(“Why Driverless Cars May Mean Jams Tomorrow”)this is the subhead of an article “Why Driverless Cars May Mean Jams Tomorrow” published in The Economist Jan. 2018. Firstly from the historical aspects, the author points out that the subsequent results after the transport innovation are the super complicated city structure and more crowded roads, because high-speed transports make it possible to extend the living area around the city. The author explains that developed vehicles make it convenient for people to enjoy the city’s adequate entertainment while escaping from the bad living environment in the center of the urban. In this way, transports promote urbanization which leads to attract more residents to the city. Then the author takes the U.S. as an example. The article indicates that to fix the overcrowded subway in New York, government has to pay at least $100bn. The author analyses the endless loop between the extension of city and the emergence of new transportation. The article mentions that the aim of traffic is to get people closer, because proximity will generate many benefits. However, when people become closer and closer, crowding then occurs. Finally The author quotes Gilles Duranton from the University of Pennsylvania and Matthew Turner from Brown University who identified a “fundamental law of road congestion”. Namely, building more highways does not reduce congestion. On the contrary, it attracts more residents until roads are once again crammed. In short, in the author’s opinion, driverless cars may dissatisfy those who expect this new invention to progress their lives. Yet standing on the proponents’ view, in the following paragraphs I will analyze the author’s viewpoint and subsequently explain why accurate and efficient driverless cars can help solve the congestion.
First of all I have to admit that this article is better than most articles against driverless cars because it not only clearly illustrates its main claim but seems right. However, I consider that there are two loopholes of the author’s view. One is that the author thinks that advanced vehicles will attract residents to the center area until it is beyond the capacity of the traffic capacity of the city. It seems like a perfect theory, does not it?. Howbeit, maybe the author ignores that the effects brought by new transport are bidirectional. On the one hand, it will lead to people who live far from the center of the city move in more often. On the other hand, services suppliers are willing to get out of downtown to where their potential buyers live. Denizens are eager to go into the city to enjoy various entertainment meanwhile businessmen will be willing to get closer with their consumers, because downtown seems like a saturated market. Therefore, if there are some ways that both low-cost and quick to buyers, merchants are certainly desperate to take advantage of them. In this case, though still there are some people get involved into the city life, there are also some persons escape from it which keeps the population at a equilibrium.
Another unthoughtful point is that the author maybe intentionally does not mention the development of other things related to the transport. Usually we should consider things by putting them into a system. Undoubtedly, we need to think about dealing with congestion within a transport system. In other word, we should not just consider the vehicles but also the breadth of the road etc. Therefore, if intelligent cars are created, other infrastructures may also make a great strides. Just suppose a situation that one day if your arms get stronger, is it possible that your legs are still as thin as a child? That is to say that when factories are able to manufacture driverless cars, other facilities on the road may be more efficient, so maybe a new transport method cannot remove the crowding but an more advanced system is more likely to achieve it. Then let me explain why this kind of new cars can solve congestion.
The reason why self-driving cars can dispose crowding is that these cars are accurate and efficient. To achieve the aim of removing congestion, intelligent cars need to corporate with the cloud computing which can be seen as an integrated management. Why does it work? I think that it is because under this control system, every car will perform according to the most optimal speed and planed lines by computers instead of discretion from human. Chaos of cars is one of wearisome reasons to cause traffic jams. Desire of reaching terminal points quickly drives handlers of mobiles to wildly barge about which leads to accidents and other conflicts. Traffic accidents and other behavioral conflicts enormously reduce the efficiency of the road. Nevertheless, if there are self-driving cars available, this phenomenon will be less because of an integrated management by cloud computing and driverless cars. Under this control system, every car will perform according to the most optimal speed and planed lines by supercomputers instead of discretion from human. In this way, it greatly saves the time on the way. For example, following the accurate speed, the space between each cars can be compressed so that a road can contain more cars at the same time. Moreover, an integrated transport system can adjust the time of interval between traffic lights. If there is a busy part of the road, the cars will move according to the vehicle flowrate. When there are too many cars, then some cars whose destination are close can slow down to let other cars go first with the help of the green light. In sum, intelligent cars will not increase the jams, conversely, it will alleviate the dire condition.
In conclusion, most time the technological innovation improves our life. Unlike what the author mentioned in The Economist, human should be optimistic to the coming benefits by driverless cars. Additionally, collaborating with cloud computing makes us faith in these cars that will give a great effort to resist the tightly packed roads.
Works cited
“Why driverless cars may mean jams tomorrow” The Economist, 20 January 2018,
https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21735019-they-will-spa re-world-neither-traffic-congestion-nor-infrastructure-expense-why.Accessed 1 February 2018