Originally posted by: Martimus
Traffic is a problem mostly because we are bottlenecked by the roads. If we got rid of roads (flying cars) we would only be bottlenecked by the destination.
You could view transportation as a computer science problem. (Hey, we have to keep this on topic somehow, right?
)
People -> Data
Buildings -> Storage devices
Roads -> System Bandwidth
The root of the problem is a glut of data (overpopulation,) and the "system" can only be expanded so much to accommodate it, before hitting technical limitations - in large cities, this means physically running out of free space to pave. There's no more room to add pathways, (roads,) and increasing the frequency (speed limit) causes crashes. (Literally
)
If you have ever flown an airplane, you would understand this. Flying is much easier than driving, mostly because you don't have to worry about actually running into anything (obstructions are so far apart, and there are rules as to what altitude to fly depending on direction and other things).
Well, that's simply untrue. Every airplane's entire route is pre-planned and monitored constantly by the pilots and each airport's Air Traffic Control tower the entire time to avoid collisions. Passenger planes also aren't flying into suburban neighborhoods, or parking downtown.
Here's a neat composite of 24 hours of air traffic over North America:
Image (Brighter colors = higher traffic. High res and more data available
here.)
Originally posted by: taltamir
martimus... and then each driver needs the level of instrumentation, coordination (with air traffic control), and training as a commercial PILOT! Not everyone is cut out to be a pilot. It will ONLY work if the cars fly themselves.
Automated is the only way. As you add more vehicles, the complexity of organizing their routes increases geometrically. (Exponentially?) Tracking a city full of flying people couldn't be managed by the traditional human air-traffic controllers, never mind individual drivers.
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