As with the latest trends of new automotive cars and vehicles, why suddenly it became a huge wave of discovery towards autonomous vehicles where we know that it gives immense pleasure in driving your vehicle and a way of generating your own income.
With the established automobile manufacturers and players in the industry, driving those cars, analyzing, and generating your reviews were interesting areas to be enjoyed, so why suddenly going into the autonomous or Robocars technology field? Let’s go through the points: –
Mobility increase for people who can’t or are not able to drive — As per Anderson et al., 2014, automated vehicles allow young, elderly, sick, or blind people who are not allowed to steer the wheel. According to the Googles driverless car video shows how a blind man is invited for their self-driving cars to go around the town or even in another case study, sick people can be seen riding cars to hospitals or children being carried from and to school.
Thus, resulting in them being independent and reducing social isolation with essential services in access. (Ayodele & Ragland, 2003; Rosenbloom, 2001).
Increase in efficiency by utilizing cars & saving costs- One of major argument used in the benefits are to utilize the idle time of typical cars available in the parking spot estimating their 95 percent of its lifetime. As per the study conducted by the researchers, the automated car can reduce the number of cars owned by private’s persons by providing services such as pick up and drop for several family members in place of manual driving.
(Fagnant & Kockelman, 2013, Ferreras, 2014). Increasing car-sharing services let the consumers be involved in high vehicle cost and low utilization rate as its solution where the emergence of autonomous cars has strengthened the lowering of vehicle costs per person. (Anderson et al., 2014; Butterman, 2013; Fagnant & Kockelman, 2013; KPMG & CAR, 2012).
Insurance charges- As per Anderson et al., 2014; KPMG & CAR, 2012, individual car insurance costs will be largely reduced by fully autonomous cars. As per a report published by KPMG & CAR, 2012, service models like “pay as you go and drive” are enabling drivers to expect in saving insurance costs as different premiums will be provided by insurance companies for human and autonomous driven cars.
Helping the deceased- As per Knight (2012), the need for driverless cars was increased due to demographic change, an aging population with slower reflexes, and worsening eyesight. Even they would like to remain independent and mobile.
The younger generation- As per the latest trend studied by Davis & Dutzik, 2014; KPMG & CAR, 2012, enthusiasm in learning driving or getting a driver’s license was seen very less among the young generation.
According to the study by Neff (2010) and Davis &Dutzik (2014), the social network such as game consoles and smartphones have gained more interest among the younger generation as compared to cars, as they prefer to be connected constantly and consider driving as a mere distraction rather being online.
As per a study by Davis & Dutzik (2014), KPMG & CAR (2012), and Fagnant & Kockelman (2014) owning a car has been less important among the new generation.
Usage of car-sharing- As per Fagnant & Kockelman, 2014; KPMG & CAR, 2012, the use of sharing cars in urban areas has been predicted to rise due to its flexibility in order as per the personal needs for using telecommunication devices like smartphones.
The following trends depict that there will be a strong support to accept driverless cars in day-to-day life as per Anderson et al., 2014; Butterman, 2013; Fagnant & Kockelman, 2013; KPMG & CAR, 2012.
Even though driverless car shows a lot of advantages, as per Anderson et al., 2014; Fagnant & Kockelman, 2013; KPMG & CAR, 2012, disadvantages cannot be neglected such as vehicle miles in association with externalities like increase of absolute fuel consumption, congestion, suburban sprawl and demand for total higher in road capacity.
As the main purpose of the autonomous vehicle is derived from network effects such as adopting autonomous cars or Vehicle-to-Vehicle and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure communication whereas per experts it is difficult to exactly forecast the development.
But as per Anderson et al., 2014; Fagnant & Kockelman, 2013; KPMG & CAR, 2012, most likely taxi and bus operators or professional taxi drivers may land up losing their jobs due to automated technologies.
Source:- Self-driving cars: The next revolution; Preparing a Nation for Autonomous Vehicles: Opportunities, Barriers, and Policy Recommendations; Fast approaching: driverless cars. Mechanical Engineering, Autonomous Vehicle Technology: A Guide for Policymakers; Ferreras, L. E. (2014). The Driverless City. Civil Engineering.