Self-driven Cars and Failing Infrastructure

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In the US people are obsessed with the lure of self-driving cars and robotaxies but I think these are looking in the wrong direction. If you’re looking in the right direction you improve bus services. You improve their frequency and you improve their coverage. You also improve the bike sharing infrastructure.

If you live in a village that is a half hour walk from the local train station then it is key that you add more buses, at more times. It is key to provide bikes so that people can go from villages with one bus per hour to towns with a train every fifteen minute, or even more regularly.

A billionaire just promised robot taxies that will cost USD 30,000 and be available from 2027. The idea of having more cheap taxies is bad. We don’t need more self-driving cars. We need more safe routes for cycling and walking. Most people don’t need to pick up children. Most people are in their cars alone. A self driving car with a single person is still a car with a single person inside.

During a bike ride I noticed that La Chataigneraie school has Publibike bikes. This means that children that live near a Publibike station can cycle to and from school, rather than taking a school bus, and rather than being driven by their parents. This means that fewer car journeys, bus seats and more are required. A van has to come to service the bikes every so often, but other than that the carbon footprint is lower.

As a pedestrian and a cyclist I don’t want self-driving cars on roads between towns and villages because Tesla cars are often driven too fast and too close to me when cycling and walking. Teslas might have more robotics but when they’re driven too fast, and too close in a forest, when you’re riding uphill that technology is not reassuring.

I think that real vision and forward thinking is to reduce the need for cars and buses, in favour of bikes, e-bikes and safe parking for all bikes.

For me, publibike is more forward thinking. Donkey.bike is more forward thinking too. The reason is simple. If I walk it will take me half an hour. If I cycle it will take me 6 minutes one way, and 11 minutes the other way. I don’t need a bus or a car. A 10kg bike, with muscle power achieves the same goal with a tiny fraction of the carbon footprint of a self-driving electric car.

The Citroën C3 weighs 1.6 tons. A bike or e-bikes weighs just 10kg. Cars should become niche. I need a car for food shopping if I go once a week. I need a car if I’m going scuba diving. I don’t need a car if I’m going to do a linear hike with friends that are taking a train anyway. I don’t need a car to get from my home to Nyon train station. I don’t need a car to get me from Geneva train station to work.

A paradox that is not lost on me is that the robotaxi marketing photos are all of a car in an urban environment. In London I used the tube, in Paris and Rome I used the Metro, when I didn’t walk, and in Geneva I use the tram or walk. For me the niche use case for cars is not towns. It’s the countryside.

As one article pointed out though, self driving cars are nothing new. Some are already in operation in certain cities. For me, moving forward is to move beyond cars. Bikes and public transport, combined, make more sense.