According to a research study by MIT's Computer Science And Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), a fleet of 3,000 ride-sharing cars could totally replace all 13,000 taxis in New York City.
NYC Taxis Could Be Replace By Ride-Sharing Cars
MIT published the new study on its website on Monday, Jan. 2 as well as in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. According to the research's findings, passengers who use ride-sharing services for carpooling instead of hailing taxis may lead to reduced fuel use, pollution and traffic congestion. In order to come with these conclusions, the CSAIL research team developed an algorithm using public data published by the University of Illinois based on information gathered from NYC taxi rides.
According to The Verge, the research team calculated that 98 percent of taxi demand in the city could be met by 3,000 four-person vehicles traveling to similar destinations with an average wait time of 2.7 minutes. A very important part of the system consists in a dynamic repositioning of vehicles. The dynamic repositioning of cars makes the system 20 percent faster, being based on real-time demand.
At the moment both Lyft and Uber ride-sharing companies work to expand their carpooling businesses. The researchers at CSAIL also analyzed the potential for extreme carpooling. The team found that 95 percent of demand could be met by 2,000 10-person vehicles, by examining other vehicle sizes.
The system could reassign the vehicles based on incoming requests, by using a variety of vehicle types. For instance, multi-passenger vans could be sent to a concert or big sports event rather than a larger fleet of smaller cars.
The system looks at all available vehicles and incoming requests and then determines the best assignments and routes for each car. The algorithm can rebalance the remaining idle vehicles after cars are assigned, by sending them to higher-demand areas.
Similar Initiatives Could Happen In Other Cities
According to Gizmodo, Google is launching its own ride-sharing service, officially deciding to compete with Uber in San Francisco. Google's navigation app called Waze will be also involved in this project. Rumors about the eventuality of Google competing with Uber by launching its own ride-sharing service had surfaced before. In order to create its own ride-sharing service, Google might use their autonomous cars.
This is a sign of increased competition between Google and Uber in the carpooling service industry. Google is not only competing with Uber's service now, but the tech giant might also be aiming for Uber's title as the first rideshare company to use autonomous driving vehicles. There have also been rumors that the ride-sharing service planned by Google will charge commuters a lower fee compared to industry leaders such as Lyft or Uber.
Back in the year 2013, Uber and Google formed an alliance. At the time the famous search giant invested $258 million in Uber. However, more recently the ride-sharing service Uber has been letting go a Google top executive from board meetings in order to keep him from gaining insider access to Uber's plan to launch fleets of self-driving cars. Senior vice president of Alphabet David Drummond has announced his resignation from Uber's board after serving for two years, as reported by LA Times.
