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Automated highways will not solve congestion problems

Automated highways are not the answer. Relief from congestion and accidents due to automating highways will be a long time coming because:

  1. New automated systems require extremely high safety standards which will result in increased spacing between cars and thus less capacity
  2. The problems will be greatly exacerbated in wet and icy conditions
  3. High speed operations will be problematic
  4. Unexpected obstacles such as tumbleweeds will be difficult to deal with
  5. Each advance in automation will bring with it unforeseen problems like texting while driving
  6. Incremental introduction will be difficult – who will buy the first expensive driverless cars when the cannot be used to advantage because they have to mingle with regular cars (and worse – trucks)

In addition, automated highways will fail to address problems such as:

  1. Real estate devoured by roads and parking lots.
  2. Severance caused by roads. Communities will continue to be divided by highways
  3. Since cars will remain personal property, automating them will not reduce the significant resources spent on building and owning them.
  4. Automating vehicles (even trucks) will not significantly address the costs of logistics (moving goods) which are increasing at four times the rate of population growth as discussed before.
  5. Automating cars will do little to improve livability. The roads and parking lots required to accommodate cars will continue to separate and divide shops, hospitals, university facilities, etc. making it difficult to walk between them and essential to own a car.