I've always envisioned the ped-car conflict as being one of the riskiest part of the whole AV concept. I can imagine a bunch of university students on a Friday night just "taking over" major arterials simply by walking in groups across or on the road, knowing that all vehicles are programmed to avoid them. Of course, this won't really be an issue until the time when all vehicles are programmed in this manner, but pedestrian avoidance systems will soon come to all new vehicles and not be limited to AVs.
Some would say that by removing the danger of car-ped conflict, we are making life better and more ped-friendly, but you are right in noting that it is the risk / danger of such conflict that provides effective "silent policing" today. Absent such "silent policing" I think we would have to move to more "active policing", combined with physical barriers, ped bridges, and fences to control mid-block ped crossings. So we'll end up with a more rigorous separation, higher cost, and a worse pedestrian environment (and greater auto dominance of the street). Not much of a bargain. I don't see a viable universal solution to the problem, but you're right in that the answer has to lie in cultural behaviour rather than "engineered" responses. But how to control / create / manage cultural behaviour in this manner?
I've always envisioned the ped-car conflict as being one of the riskiest part of the whole AV concept. I can imagine a bunch of university students on a Friday night just "taking over" major arterials simply by walking in groups across or on the road, knowing that all vehicles are programmed to avoid them. Of course, this won't really be an issue until the time when all vehicles are programmed in this manner, but pedestrian avoidance systems will soon come to all new vehicles and not be limited to AVs.
Some would say that by removing the danger of car-ped conflict, we are making life better and more ped-friendly, but you are right in noting that it is the risk / danger of such conflict that provides effective "silent policing" today. Absent such "silent policing" I think we would have to move to more "active policing", combined with physical barriers, ped bridges, and fences to control mid-block ped crossings. So we'll end up with a more rigorous separation, higher cost, and a worse pedestrian environment (and greater auto dominance of the street). Not much of a bargain. I don't see a viable universal solution to the problem, but you're right in that the answer has to lie in cultural behaviour rather than "engineered" responses. But how to control / create / manage cultural behaviour in this manner?
Culture creation is tricky! One way to do it is to write essays on the subject; consider this post as an attempt to conjure what I want into being