‘Just make sure there are more seats in the cars than people’: is there a simple solution to objections to ‘the end of personal vehicle ownership?’

Earlier this week, we published an article on the risks of a world in which ridesharing and self-driving technologies have made personal vehicle ownership a thing of the past. In the discussion of “what could possibly go wrong,” our key focal point was thinking about disaster scenarios, like hurricane evacuations, in which everyone in a community needs transportation at once.

Shortly after the article dropped, a reader on the social media website Saidit commented, under the handle happysmash27, with what seems like an elegantly simple yet compelling counterpoint:

My proposed solution: Just make sure there are more seats in the cars than people. In good times, people can ride alone if they want, but in bad times, they can just carpool.

happysmash27

So are those of us who are alarmed about possible pitfalls of the end of vehicle ownership by individual citizens and families simply being, well, alarmists? Are we like Chicken Little, needlessly running around and trying to convince everyone that the sky is going to fall?

The “just make sure there are more seats than people” proposition seems like a great idea in theory. But in that scenario, do the economics of ridesharing still make sense? And is it an idea that could work in real-world disaster scenarios?

To fully work out an answer that has accounted for a reasonably complete range of real-world complexities would be an involved process of data-point gathering, number crunching, and analysis. However, we can put the concept to the test with a very simple model that can give us some illustrations of what could go right and what could go wrong.

So let’s do that. Imagine a tiny community. Let’s call it Simpleton, with a tip of the hat to the old XTC song, “Mayor of Simpleton”—because taking the simplest possible example is the best way to get the clearest initial understanding of the basic “yes or no” viability of a concept.         

Imagine that Simpleton, unlike the real-world United States at almost 20 years into the 21^st Century, has a demographic structure that’s easy to get your head around. There are 100 people in 25 households of four people each.

Let’s also assume a scenario that puts a pretty high load on the transportation infrastructure: each of those households is a married couple with two children and both spouses work.

No, we’re not exactly being politically correct with these demographic assumptions, but we’ll set those complexities aside because the objective at this stage is to put the “more seats than people” idea to a quasi-mathematical test. And, remember: this is the town of Simpleton. They might not have quite caught up with the times yet.

Also keeping things simple, the children are all school age. One autonomous school bus that holds the 50 kids gets them back and fourth to school every day.

Beyond the autonomous school bus, imagine that there is one other type of vehicle available to serve the population of Simpleton: a fleet of autonomous cars, each capable of holding four people, owned by a corporation—let’s call it SimpleTransport.

Now, let’s look at the couples. Again keeping things simple, they each spend a total of one hour each day commuting back and fourth to work. They all work traditional nine to five shifts, so the daily commuting load requires 50 seats to be available for one hour five days per week. So at peak load the transportation needs can theoretically be met by as few 13 vehicles—most of which will already be idle most hours of the day.

If we were to bring more real-world complexities into the picture, like jobs with different work schedules and some level of waiting time for daily transport that the market would find acceptable, you could potentially reduce this number of vehicles even further and increase the ability of SimpleTransport to accommodate those who want to commute alone.

But other complexities could raise the number of vehicles needed. If we retain the “everyone starts and ends work at the same time” constraint and also assume that there isn’t much tolerance for wait time and that it doesn’t hold true that every daily commuter will be fine with sharing a pod with 2-3 other people, we’re looking at more vehicles.

If the market demands no more than two per vehicle, for example, so that all of the couples in Simpleton could share the same vehicle as they commute to work, we’re already looking at 25 vehicles. That takes us right back to essentially having one vehicle per household. Poof! The ridesharing economy no longer seems to have any economies.

Nevertheless, at the simplest theoretical level, the entire daily commuting needs are met by 14 vehicles—one autonomous school bus and 13 4-seat cars. Theoretically, that’s also enough capacity for all 100 residents to have a seat in an emergency situation.

Problem solved? Yes, in theory. It’s enough to get everyone evacuated to at least one basic point of safety, somehwere.

So there is, strictly speaking, a solution to the evacuation problem—which is an extreme case that based on past history is highly unlikely to be necessary even once during the average lifetime.

But is it a satisfactory solution?

The rights that Americans treasure are based on the idea of being able to maintain control in an extreme situation.

Here are some flaws in the above scenario that are unlikely be satisfactory to many families.

Unless each household has guaranteed access to one vehicle that can carry all of its members together, there will be some level of sharing.

If there are 25 households and only 14 vehicles, not every household may be able to decide exactly where they want to evacuate to, or when they want to leave. If 24 households are fine with evacuating to Whoville Stadium which is comfortably outside of the storm surge zone, the 25^th household that wants to evacuate to Grandma’s house in Idaho might be out of luck.

Once the 52 seats in the four-passenger cars are all filled, sharing becomes part of the equation. 50 people are going to have to get on the bus. To be guaranteed that at least one parent will be in the same vehicle in with the kids, couples may have to separate for the evacuation.

We’re already arriving at levels of uncertainty and complexity that would make many people uncomfortable with the solution.

To keep everyone comfortable, you get back to the formula of at least one four-seat vehicle per household. And that is where the economies of shared ownership as a viable alternative to personal vehicle ownership stop making sense. We’re back where we started.

The real world, of course, is Complexton, not Simpleton. Not everyone lives in a traditional family household. There are single people living alone. There are young unmarried adults. There are retirees, disabled people, and others who might not put a daily load on an inventory of transportation seats at peak times.

No doubt, these are the kinds of logistical variables that companies like Uber and Lyft are probably constantly refining their algorithms to deal with, especially because the ridesharing model’s profitability depends optimizing to the minimum inventory of seats needed to meet peak demand.

Off peak capacity is gravy to the consumer, who will find it easier to get a vehicle to himself or herself, if desired, for transportation needs on weekends, evenings, mid-day medical appointments, grocery runs, and so forth. For many, the idea that personal vehicle ownership becomes unnecessary in this scenario is seductive.

So what’s the takeaway here?

A shared model that includes far fewer vehicles that individuals have under their full command and control could work for many people, especially those in large urban centers where a robust public transportation infrastructure is a practical possibility.

But living without personal ownership doesn’t work for everyone, especially those who live in more rural, spread-out geographical communities. And for those who highly value having the highest possible degree of individual control, it won’t fly.

If I need to evacuate my family in a disaster, I want to be in control of when I leave, where I go, and how I get there. I’m back to the phrases that seem to keep coming up as I articulate my sense of “the right to drive” that I want to preserve: individuals must retain the right to personal vehicle ownership so that they can drive where they want, when they want, using the routes of their choice, in vehicles that they individually control.  It’s a fundamental element of personal freedom.

For the vision of the end of personal vehicle ownership to come to fruition, a major realignment of basic values, expectations, and assumptions would be necessary, and it seems difficult to see that happening as soon as the evangelists of ridesharing and autonomy are pushing for.

As someone who treasures the right to drive, I hope I’m right.