Government
Why Driverless Cars Will Increase Tensions in Cities and Suburbs Alike
Think the battle between drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians is ugly now? Wait until engineers start designing intersections for computers instead of people.
Driverless cars sound less and less like science fiction with each passing month, and that's prompted widespread discussion about how they might change society. They will bring many changes, but when it comes to the car's role in the city, they may just intensify current tensions.
The Atlantic Cities' own Emily Badger interviewed a research team of computer scientists at the University of Texas at Austin, who are studying how to make intersections move far more cars than they can today. They devised algorithms that let driverless cars flow through the intersection without need for lights that only let one direction of traffic move at a time.