机器人汽车能否缓解交通阻塞？(2)

[9]然而，华盛顿大学的交通研究员邓·麦克坎兹表示，汽车出行最大的成本考量是司机的时间。当人们可以有效地利用出行时间完成其他任务时，这个成本就会大幅度下降。

[10]麦克坎兹和其他研究员在《交通研究A》杂志上发表了一篇研究报告，该研究估计，这些车辆可以降低多达80%的出行成本。而这会转而提高60%的出行里数。

[11]柏诚集团的可持续运输经理劳伦·艾萨克在其报告中指出，无人驾驶这条路面临着一个分岔口，它所预示的要么是乌托邦，要么就是噩梦。

[12]最好的情况是，无人驾驶的汽车和卡车更安全，在车间距减小的同时行驶速度更快，交通堵塞因此而减少。因为车辆间无须更大间距以防事故发生，所以公路车道可以更窄，而由事故导致的交通阻塞也会减少。但是，只要无人驾驶汽车与传统汽车共享道路（这种情况大概会持续几十年），上述优势都会受限。

[13] But that scenario11scenario 情形，情境。depends on a societal shift from private vehicle ownership to commercial fleets of driverless cars that can be quickly summoned with a phone app. Driverless fleets12fleet 车队。would have to become super-efficient carpools,picking up and dropping off multiple passengers traveling in the same direction.

[14] The congestion nightmare would result if a large share of people can’t be persuaded to effectively share robot cars with strangers and to continue using mass transit, Isaac said.

[15] A study last year by the International Transport Forum, a transportation policy think tank, simulated13simulate 模仿，模拟。the impact on traffic in Lisbon, Portugal, if conventional cars were replaced with driverless cars that take either a single passenger at a time or several passengers together.

It found that as long as half of travel is still carried out by conventional cars,total vehicle miles traveled will increase from 30 to 90 percent, suggesting that even widespread sharing of driverless cars would mean greater congestion for a long time.

[16] Airlines also may face new competition as people choose to travel by car at speeds well over 100 mph between cities a few hundred miles apart instead of flying. Transit agencies will need to rethink their services in order to stay competitive, especially because the elimination of a driver would make carsharing services cheaper.

[13]但是，这种情况取决于从拥有私人汽车到使用商业无人驾驶车队的社会转变。商业无人驾驶车队可通过手机应用程序快速召唤，这必会成为非常高效的拼车方式，可接送同一方向的多名乘客。

[14]艾萨克表示，如果大部分人不愿与陌生人有效共享机器人汽车，而是继续使用公共交通工具，那么交通拥堵的噩梦就会变为现实。

[15]去年，交通政策智囊团“国际交通论坛”做了一项研究。他们将传统汽车换成一次乘坐一名或数名乘客的无人驾驶汽车，模拟研究此举对葡萄牙里斯本交通状况的影响。

研究发现，只要传统汽车出行仍占一半，汽车行驶总里程将增加30%到90%，这表明，即使无人驾驶汽车的共享出行方式广泛普及，很长一段时期内，拥堵也会更加严重。

[16]航空公司也可能面临新的竞争，因为如果两个城市相距不过几百英里，而驾车时速可远超100英里，那人们就会选择驾车而不是坐飞机。运输公司为了保持竞争力，将需要重新考虑他们的服务，特别是在无人驾驶会使汽车共享服务更便宜的情况下。

[17] To make the shared-vehicle model work, government would have to impose congestion pricing on highway,restrict parking in urban centers, add more high-occupancy vehicle lanes14high-occupancy vehicle lane高载率车道，即HOV车道，指为提倡拼车以降低汽车空载率，减少能源消耗，缓解交通压力而修建的拼车车道。车道上有HOV标志。and take other measures to discourage people from traveling alone in their self-driving cars.

[18] Land-use policies may need to be adjusted to prevent sprawl15sprawl 杂乱无序地拓展。, or people will move beyond the fringes of metropolitan areas for low-cost housing because they can work while commuting at high speeds. Taxes based on the number of miles a personal vehicle travels are another way to discourage car travel.

[19] All these policy changes would be controversial and difficult to achieve.

[20] While there are “loads of likely positive impacts for society associated with driverless technology,” people are right to worry about potential for huge increases in congestion, Isaac said.

“Without any government influence,”she said, “human nature is to get into that single occupancy vehicle.”

[17]为了使共享车辆模式发挥作用，政府将不得不收取公路拥堵费，限制在市中心停车，增加更多高载率车道，并采取其他措施阻碍人们单独乘坐无人驾驶汽车出行。

文章来源：《汽车实用技术》 网址: http://www.qcsyjs.cn/qikandaodu/2021/0119/715.html