Current Events > study about how driverless vehicles could harm city budgets

(+) Yeah! (+)

http://www.governing.com/gov-data/gov-how-autonomous-vehicles-could-effect-city-budgets.html

http://www.governing.com/topics/finance/gov-cities-traffic-parking-revenue-driverless-cars.html

Austin’s transportation director, Robert Spillar, is working to prepare the city. But earlier this year, a realization hit him about what driverless cars might mean for his budget. “It struck me,” he says. “Half my revenue for transportation capacity and operations improvements is based on a parking model that may be obsolete in a dozen years.”

In the not-too-distant future, fleets of fully autonomous vehicles could be transporting riders all across Austin’s urban landscape, largely eliminating not only the need for private vehicles but also the revenue they currently bring in. Parking fees are a critical funding source for the Austin Transportation Department, accounting for nearly a quarter of its total budget. Driverless vehicles would also cut into parking tickets and traffic citations, two other significant revenue streams for Austin and many other cities. “Municipalities generate a whole lot of revenue as a byproduct of parking management and traffic enforcement,” Spillar says. “If all that suddenly disappears, we’ve got a huge financial issue to deal with.”

Just another example of how bloated governments have an incentive to stifle innovation, because they're locked into old patterns of thought, right @Transcendentia ?
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It is an example of that. Just like relying on gas tax is an example of that. Not sure why you're asking that question tongue in cheek.

The government cements and encourages deprecated concepts in order to retain tax revenue. That is because governments care about maintaining their glorious tax revenue more than they care about actually allowing real progress.
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I mean, if your budget and department subsist because of traffic citations and parking tickets...fuck that budget and fuck that department!

How the fuck is this a difficult concept?
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Transcendentia posted...

Not sure why you're asking that question tongue in cheek.

it's not
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Well there we go folks. Time to stop aiming for the future, because state's don't want to invest in new revenue streams.
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Balrog0 posted...

Transcendentia posted...

Not sure why you're asking that question tongue in cheek.

it's not

oh my b

we also need to get @sktgamer_13dude and @Antifar in here so they see what i mean
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Profit > Better technology for society/Better society
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Driverless vehicles are not a good new technology, and if people think this is a good future to aim for they truly do not know much or anything about software or programming.
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Offworlder1 posted...

Driverless vehicles are not a good new technology, and if people think this is a good future to aim for they truly do not know much or anything about software or programming.

why not
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They'll just offset it by increasing registration, gas, and renewal fees like the pieces of crap they are

The automobile industry will have to spend big bucks on the programming of any driverless vehicles.

Look at computers and how complicated they are, the fact they need updates/patches/bug fixes. Each time any of that is needed a programmer is required and most charge a lot of money to do their work.

Driverless vehicles will be more expensive then what we have now to compensate for the fee of programmers and the tech itself is not cheap.
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LightDarkFrexed posted...

They'll just offset it by increasing registration, gas, and renewal fees like the pieces of crap they are

And that is why big government is poisonous and evil.
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Offworlder1 posted...

The automobile industry will have to spend big bucks on the programming of any driverless vehicles.

Look at computers and how complicated they are, the fact they need updates/patches/bug fixes. Each time any of that is needed a programmer is required and most charge a lot of money to do their work.

Driverless vehicles will be more expensive then what we have now to compensate for the fee of programmers and the tech itself is not cheap.

This is completely wrong btw
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Transcendentia posted...

Offworlder1 posted...

The automobile industry will have to spend big bucks on the programming of any driverless vehicles.

Look at computers and how complicated they are, the fact they need updates/patches/bug fixes. Each time any of that is needed a programmer is required and most charge a lot of money to do their work.

Driverless vehicles will be more expensive then what we have now to compensate for the fee of programmers and the tech itself is not cheap.

This is completely wrong btw

It is... completely right.

And as it is now, driverless vehicles are being 'hacked' by painting white lines on roads, or covering stop signs. These are basic things that do not affect the average driver, but are huge deals for driverless vehicles.

Lets also not forget that they will need to communicate with one another... communication = open connections = ability to take control of remotely.
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It is not completely right. The software already exists and is improving every day. The cost of the hardware is a few grand for a brand new Tesla. It's getting cheaper every year. The cost of the software is distributed across millions of vehicles, so it's cheap per car.

Updates happen wirelessly and instantly over the air. It's not much longer until autonomous software drives vehicles better than humans do.
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Transcendentia posted...

It is not completely right. The software already exists and is improving every day. The cost of the hardware is a few grand for a brand new Tesla. It's getting cheaper every year. The cost of the software is distributed across millions of vehicles, so it's cheap per car.

Updates happen wirelessly and instantly over the air. It's not much longer until autonomous software drives vehicles better than humans do.

The vehicles will not drive better than humans because... humans program them.

There will always be faults in the programming because we are not perfect, therefore our products will never be perfect.
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MaverickXeo posted...

Transcendentia posted...

It is not completely right. The software already exists and is improving every day. The cost of the hardware is a few grand for a brand new Tesla. It's getting cheaper every year. The cost of the software is distributed across millions of vehicles, so it's cheap per car.

Updates happen wirelessly and instantly over the air. It's not much longer until autonomous software drives vehicles better than humans do.

The vehicles will not drive better than humans because... humans program them.

There will always be faults in the programming because we are not perfect, therefore our products will never be perfect.

Humans programming them doesn't change whether or not autonomous driving will be better than manual driving. We can build pretty damn good software, especially with modern machine learning technology. It'll be much safer to have an autonomous car than to drive on your own, for example.

The cars are not perfect and they'll never be perfect, but their safety will match plane safety if not exceed it.
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Balrog0 posted...

Just another example of how bloated governments have an incentive to stifle innovation, because they're locked into old patterns of thought

Sums up how I feel.
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MaverickXeo posted...

Transcendentia posted...

Offworlder1 posted...

The automobile industry will have to spend big bucks on the programming of any driverless vehicles.

Look at computers and how complicated they are, the fact they need updates/patches/bug fixes. Each time any of that is needed a programmer is required and most charge a lot of money to do their work.

Driverless vehicles will be more expensive then what we have now to compensate for the fee of programmers and the tech itself is not cheap.

This is completely wrong btw

It is... completely right.

And as it is now, driverless vehicles are being 'hacked' by painting white lines on roads, or covering stop signs. These are basic things that do not affect the average driver, but are huge deals for driverless vehicles.

Lets also not forget that they will need to communicate with one another... communication = open connections = ability to take control of remotely.

Automatic cars are use machine learning and computer vision to achieve the results. If we were to actually embrace the technology, you could make the training easier.

Also companies with R&D departments which are pushing the automated technology further have their own dedicated software engineering department.
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MaverickXeo posted...

Transcendentia posted...

It is not completely right. The software already exists and is improving every day. The cost of the hardware is a few grand for a brand new Tesla. It's getting cheaper every year. The cost of the software is distributed across millions of vehicles, so it's cheap per car.

Updates happen wirelessly and instantly over the air. It's not much longer until autonomous software drives vehicles better than humans do.

The vehicles will not drive better than humans because... humans program them.

There will always be faults in the programming because we are not perfect, therefore our products will never be perfect.

The real problem is that automated vehicles would have to integrate with human drivers who are unpredictable and generally shit.

If we were to completely transfer to automated driving it would not be surprising is mortality rates plummeted from driving accidents.

But it brings up some subtle issues of morality in the programming. For example, should the car prioritize the passengers or a crowd of people if it were losing control? Obviously the passengers would prefer the crowd to be run over, but from an impartial view if the crowd was sufficiently large you would want the passengers to die.
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IllegalAlien posted...

MaverickXeo posted...

Transcendentia posted...

Offworlder1 posted...

The automobile industry will have to spend big bucks on the programming of any driverless vehicles.

Look at computers and how complicated they are, the fact they need updates/patches/bug fixes. Each time any of that is needed a programmer is required and most charge a lot of money to do their work.

Driverless vehicles will be more expensive then what we have now to compensate for the fee of programmers and the tech itself is not cheap.

This is completely wrong btw

It is... completely right.

And as it is now, driverless vehicles are being 'hacked' by painting white lines on roads, or covering stop signs. These are basic things that do not affect the average driver, but are huge deals for driverless vehicles.

Lets also not forget that they will need to communicate with one another... communication = open connections = ability to take control of remotely.

Automatic cars are use machine learning and computer vision to achieve the results. If we were to actually embrace the technology, you could make the training easier.

Also companies with R&D departments which are pushing the automated technology further have their own dedicated software engineering department.

We already have a huge training set thanks to Tesla. They've been training their network for years now thanks to the Model S.
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Spooking posted...

It's a scummy way to make money. Quick story: if you are traveling across the US for a road trip, watch out! If you go one mile over the limit, a cop will pull you over and give you a ticket. There is no leeway. When that quick money grab goes away, I wonder how they will generate money. Because you know they'll find a way to tax something so they don't lose a dime.

Not unless we start voting for smaller government that doesn't demand so much of our money.
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Too fucking bad.
Parking meters are nothing more than rent-seeking, and a budget dependent on fines is a budget dependent on crime.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Too fucking bad.
Parking meters are nothing more than rent-seeking, and a budget dependent on fines is a budget dependent on crime.

Holy shit, parking meters are essential for pricing parking correctly. The only reason we bundle it into land prices is because government
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