For the longest time I was like the majority of drivers out there, simply blaming other drivers. Then I blamed the bad road conditions. After that it was the government's fault. Or the weather.
I want to point out a fact - 37,461 people died in 2016 in the US alone from car accidents, and over 1.25 million deaths globally. For perspective, Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North and South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, and Rhode Island all have less people than that living in them.
The problem with traffic is a complicated one, so I'll break it down a bit. There's road infrastructure, number of vehicles, rules and laws and law enforcement, and the effect all of these have when combined. On top of that, there's health, environmental, financial, and commercial issues involved, just to make things even more complex - so bear with me, this is a long one.
Most toll roads today are "state" funded enterprise, either partially or fully owned by the government. This means the govt rents out the road (or land) to a private company in return for a share of the profits. Non toll roads are usually not as well kept, as they offer no monetary incentives. Even the toll roads that do "make money" are not improved and maintained as needed, as safety measures cost money where private investors do the minimum to increase profits. A recent quality assurance review found that American highways are deteriorating faster than expected due to poor upkeep. And this is not an American problem only - China collects over 400 billion yuan each year from toll roads, but the upkeep is upwards of 700 billion, putting China in debt of 4.4 trillion yuan to private toll road investors.
As the number of vehicles on the road grows, so do the number of roads and the size of roads (more lanes). But this is a form of induced demand - the amount of roads increase and the traffic increases with it. China had one of the world's worst traffic jam, leaving thousands of travellers stuck for over days. In Indonesia the something similar happened, for an astounding 35 hours, causing 12-18 fatalities due to excessive heat, lack of resources while stranded, and ambulances could not reach people in time.
Currently, death by car accident is the leading cause of death among people ages 15-29, and 9th leading cause of death among ALL people. It is expected to grow and become the 7th leading cause by 2030, and this is not counting the 50 million people globally who only get injured and don't die. (50 million people is the population of Columbia). These injuries and fatalities are often because of lack of rules and enforcement (in poor countries), education (why do I need a seat belt?), and the automakers decisions to save a few hundred dollars in production by creating "basic" models that offer under-performing seat belts, weaker body structure, and no airbags - all for more profit.
Drivers are often stressed out, sometimes by life's problems, and at times just because they are stuck in traffic. This stress can be distracting, leading to poor judgement and adding to the unsafe conditions on the road. Sarcastically speaking, the best way to deal with stress is with alcohol, which is one of the leading causes to traffic accidents. But let's pause on that one, and add to it the marketing and culture of our society.
Every sporting event, party, concert, or the mundane dinner is heavily reliant (if not based on) alcohol consumption. Our billboards and commercials constantly remind us to be responsible, and drink more. If you are happy, sad, or bored, it seems to be a reason to drink alcohol. Our culture is the reason North America is 3rd for the highest amount of alcohol related road fatalities. In the US, one person dies every 51 minutes from drunk driving, at a cost of over $52 billion per year. It's worse in Canada.
The sober drivers are often distracted ones. Either by marketing on the road or phones, companies make money on that distraction, so billion dollar companies design apps to be addictive to increase their profits. These distractions cause slower reaction times, lane drifts, and shorter following distances. There is no evidence that laws help with that distraction at all. Most vehicles have a speedometer that goes up to 160mph, but that is a marketing ploy to give an illusion of a powerful car, when most cars won't go faster than 100mph at best. Speeding as a cause for accidents is highest among delivery drivers, with added pressure on them to make deliveries on time. And who hasn't been annoyed by a slow driver that is driving under the speed limit? Also consider snow, rain, ice, wind, fog, sun glares, sleepiness, and just plain human fallibility, as they all contribute to distractions and stress on the road.
The financial stress of car ownership is a big one. Vehicle maintenance is costly - gas, oil changes, tires, car battery, windshield wipers, coolant fluids, shocks, breaks, etc, add up to thousands of dollars each year, on top of the regular car payments, insurance payments, and parking costs. Parking costs add up to another car payment sometimes, and the consequence of not making those payments result in violations and fines. In Texas, a women spent a night in jail after accumulating over 14,000 dollars in fines. In 2016 the city of Los Angeles earned almost $148 million from parking tickets. Add to that license registration, tags and plates, and this money is crucial for a city's operation. Therefor, the city must give out those tickets to keep operating, since that money covers salaries and administrative costs. In some cities in China there's a lottery to register a vehicle, as means to limit the number of cars on the road. Most people wait years and still get denied, but drive anyways to get to work, and provide more reasons for more traffic tickets.
Traffic jams themselves add lots of time to a daily commute. In Mexico City, people spend an extra 227 hours each year standing in traffic, 170 hours per year in Los Angeles, and 130 in Toronto.
That's a lot to take in. Take a pause for a second, think that over. Breath. Ready to continue?
From a health and environmental perspective, this is not simple either. The World Health Organization says that
92% of people live in an area with bad air quality, and that up to
70% (depending on the place) of that urban air pollution is because of cars. We can talk about the science behind it all - particle matter, primary or secondary particles, smog emissions, greenhouse emissions, and how it affects people, but I don't think anyone will argue it. Having laws about these things is somewhat
pointless, and pollution travels over
air regardless of borders or continents.
Noise pollution is also a big deal, with one
study measuring the effect of noise and air pollution to show that living near busy streets had a 6% increase in high blood pressure. On top of that, there is a huge ecological problem with large habitat destruction, deforestation, negative effects on wildlife such as birds, and many other animals. Runoff from roads by rainwater and melting snow mix with it all the gunk from the road, like spilled gasoline, motor oils, and other chemicals and pollutants, and those can contaminate drinking water.
The wastefulness of vehicle production is also a problem, with the
amount of cars exceeding one billion today, and expected to be more than 2 billion by 2035. This is one vehicle for every three people, even if they can't drive or choose not to own a car. There are over 9 million people worldwide working in the automotive industry, and new models are produced each year with little modifications, simply to appeal to materialistic desires and appearance rather than performance or need. Think about all the wasteful resources, such as copper, lead, steel, plastic, and man-hours, which are not recycled in any way - and not because we don't want to. There are laws calling for
recycling of vehicles, but those are not embraced by consumers, and are not enforced by governments. If they were recycled properly, almost 2 tons of material can be recovered by 2020.
So what can be done?
Vision Zero is one approach, as it is technical in nature, and takes into consideration the overall system design, and takes a systems approach to safety. It also founded on the belief that loss of life is not an acceptable price to pay for mobility, as opposed to the traditional comparison of cost and benefit. Sweden saw a
reduction of nearly 50% in pedestrian deaths. Santiago Chile added calming zones, and those gave 85% of the people a greater sense of community. Barcelona Spain created the
superblocks, which added pedestrian space, cyclists, markets, festivals, and a better sense of community. It also reduced air and noise pollution by almost half. Seoul South Korea had a restoration project which saw ecological improvements and saw 98 species climb up to 864, with many benefits. And this Vision Zero approach is old and based on outdated systems, not taking into consideration the advanced technologies of today, so let's dive into those.
Technology today offers connected vehicle communications, which allow cars to talk to each other, and their environment using wireless connectivity like WiFi. This lets the car know about obstacles on the road, weather conditions, notify emergency vehicles or get out of their way when needed. This requires upgrading the roads infrastructure, which will be required as we move away from human drivers and towards autonomous vehicles. Speaking of autonomous vehicles, there are
6 levels of autonomy - no automation, driver assistance, partial automation, conditional automation, high automation, and full automation. Level 0 is an old car, the driver does everything. Level 1 is something like ABS and cruise control - the driver does most of the work, the automation takes over in some cases (like ABS) and the driver has to be in control. Level 2 is more like adaptive cruise control, where the car can slow down or speed up as needed, but the driver is still in control. Level 3 is the Tesla cars of today, where the car can do everything, but the fallback is still the human driver. Level 4 is better at checking its own environment, and the driver doesn't need to do anything, as long as the conditions are just right for the system, i.e. maybe not in a snowstorm. Level 5 is the future, where the car can do everything without a human driver. Elon Musk thinks
Tesla will be there within 2-3 years, and the cars will surpass the human driver within a year.
Olli is a 3D printed bus with artificial intelligence that can communicate with people in their own language, even if that is
sign language. It is accessible using an app, and is capable of learning and reasoning with humans using IBM's
Watson technology. Olli is produced using micro factories, and allows parts to be printed using CAD files, which is more efficient, less wasteful, and allows for customization for specific features like aiding the blind, hearing impaired, and the disabled. It hit the roads in 2016 for a pre-pilot, and is expanding to other parts of the world like Las Vegas, Miami-Dade, Berlin, and Copenhagen.
Universities offer lots of improvements in the field, with Michigan building
MCity to test the next generation of autonomous vehicles. Udacity is an online university offering specific courses for self-driving car engineers, with a goal to create an open source self driving vehicle using a set of challenges ranging from 3D models for camera holds to an Android dashboard. NVIDIA developed a program to teach a vehicle how to steer using machine learning. NVIDIA and Udacitiy teamed up, and they plan on releasing their creation to the world for
free, once completed.
Waymo was the first to create a level 5 autonomous car, and they sent out a fleet of 100 minivans for volunteers to use for everyday use in exchange for feedback.
Lyft joined Nutonomy to integrate self-driving cars into their fleet in Boston. Their plan is to implement
MaaS (Mobility as a Service) on a large scale, which means using an app to call a car that will take you where you need to go without a driver, or need to own a car or look for parking.
This is a very important step towards reducing congestion, and transitioning into fully autonomous transportation systems.
And then there's the stuff of the future, which may seem like science fiction. That's the flying cars, or VTOL (vertical take off and landing), which can cut down a 3+ hour commute between cities down to less than an hour.
Lilium has already successfully tested a two-person version, and plan on a 5-person version for 2019. They still require a pilot, although using simplified controls, but that may change as other technology evolves. Other research teams in the field of flying cars include MIT, NASA, and Uber, so this will become a reality soon.
Hyperloop is another example of future technology being developed by multiple teams around the world, with the intention of shortening commute between longer distances. This technology tackles the distances that are too long for a car but too expensive for a plane (let's say in the 5-10 hour range for a car, or 1-2 hours of a plane). From the inception of this idea in 2013 it was open sourced, and is the brainchild of Elon Musk. He encouraged students, innovators and engineers around the world to participate using a series of challenges and competitions which resulted in pod designs that have fail safe breaking systems and can reach speeds of 217 mph. There are now 10 proposed routes in 5 different countries connecting cities and regions all over the world.
Maglev trains use magnetic levitation, which is probably one of the best solutions in terms of resources and efficiency, is not used in large scale mostly because of politics, as it will hurt the oil and car industries. Adding inductrack (which is a passive maglev technology) makes the concept even more efficient, as it eliminates the use of superconductors and powered electromagnets. This technology is being explored by
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, and it may prove to be feasible even in our existing for-profit system.
We have the technology, we have the resources, and we have the ability to create a better system of global transportation. We are capable of creating an efficient, clean energy, safe transportation system for everyone to use. However, as long as we are bound by this for-profit, trade based monetary system, we will continue to see the problems of today, and progress will be slow, and access will be limited. Patent laws, intellectual property, ownership, and the need for companies to increase profits all get in the way of progress, but there is hope and potential so remain optimistic.
I hope that by the time my 7 year old daughter is old enough to be able to drive, the need for her to learn the skill will be as obsolete as a horse-drawn-buggy.
