Autonomous vehicles will add to traffic chaos, not solve it
Jevons’ Paradox predicts a future with more cars on the roads
What is Jevons’ Paradox?
Jevons’ Paradox is a phenomenon that was initially described by economistWilliam Jevonsin the mid-nineteenth century whilst studying coal consumption in England. It essentially states that when the efficiency of resource consumption increases so does overall use of the resource.
This initially sounds counterintuitive to most people, but in fact, this follows the laws of supply and demand which makes it a veridical paradox (something that sounds untrue but is nonetheless true). In Jevons’ case, he found that as technologies that used coal as fuel increased in fuel efficiency, the demand for coal increased; so much so that overall coal consumption continued rising despite technologies continually improving the amount of useful work that could be generated from the same input of coal.
Energy efficiency increases demand
Jevons’ Paradox presents itself in myriad ways in our society. For example, as energy efficiency of refrigerators improves the cost of refrigeration decreases, therefore increasing the demand.
In the US, the amount of electricity used to refrigerate has increased as this energy efficiency has improved. More people bought refrigerators and people began owning multiple refrigerators (27% of urban households and 40% of rural ones havemore than one refrigerator). This has also occurred with energy for light bulbs, gasoline for cars, computational power for computers, with usage of raw materials such as copper, and many other things.
In other words, as the cost to use something decreases, it gets used more.
Easy car use means more mileage
Jervons’ Paradoxdoes not only apply towards monetary costs; it also applies to opportunity costs. Whilst there are a lot of peoplewho are constrained by the costs associated with driving(buying a car, maintaining it, gasoline), there are plenty of peoplefor whom the opportunity costof drivingis the most limiting factor. After all, would you travelin a carmore if you no longer had to actually drive the car? Also, for most peoplewho can’t afford to buy a car, they will be able afford occasional trips inself-driving taxis.
When one can do whatever they want in their car whilst it gets them to their destination, they become more comfortable spending more time in the car.Imagine being able to do work, watch TV shows, sleep, or eat whilst your car gets you to work. We would all accept longer commutes.
AVs would also herald a whole host of person-less trips: picking up your groceries whilst you stay home, dropping off your pet at the vet, picking up medication for you, dropping children off at school or soccer practice and then driving back home.
Imagine being able to go to sleep in your car and wake up the next day in a vacation destination or a relative’s house in another state, having the car drive you to your destination whilst you sleep comfortably in the bed inside. AVssignificantly decrease the opportunity cost of travel and therefore lead to more travel. Think of how much more van-dwellers and RV retirees would travel if they could do anything they want inside their self-driving RV. Or how many more people would live that lifestyle.
Autonomous vehicles mean more vehicles on the streets
AVs will also make taking taxis cheaper leading to moretaxis on the streets. And shippingthings becomes cheaper, leading to an increase in consumption. This all leadsto more and more vehiclescramming onto our limited street space. This will be especially pronounced in dense urbanareas and at populartourist locations (there are already infamous lines of carsto get into places like the Grand Canyonor Yosemite; with AVs, travelling to these places by road would become impossible).
In GCP Grey’s video, he shows carstravelling all at the same rateof speedon a straight roadway. But even AVs have to slow down for turns and stop to let peoplein and out. How will New York Citylook when it becomes overtaken by autonomous vehicles?
AVs are an amazing, revolutionarytechnology that will provide a lot of benefits: such as providing freedom of mobilityto peoplewith disabilities, children, and the elderly, reducing shippingcosts, and likely being safer than human driving.
But the downsides will be a tragedy of the commons. I’m not looking forwardto this revolutionarytechnology and I can only hope that we make our citiescar-freebefore then.
Story byJirka Bulrush
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