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ByJoanLowy The Associated Press WASHINGTON Self-driving cars are expected to usher in a new era of mobility, safety and convenience. The problem, say transportation researchers, is that people will use them too much. Experts foresee robot cars chauffeuring children to school, dance class and baseball practice. The dis- abled and elderly will have new mobility. Commuters will be able to work, sleep, eat or watch movies on the way to the office. People may stay home more be- cause they can send their cars to do things like pick up groceries they've or- dered online. Researchers believe the number of miles driven will skyrocket. It's less cer- tain whether that will mean a corresponding surge in traffic congestion, but it's a clear possibility. Gary Silberg, an auto in- dustry expert at accounting firm KPMG, compares it to the introduction of smart- phones. "It will be indis- pensable to your life," he said. "It will be all sorts of things we can't even think of today." Cars that can drive them- selves under limited condi- tions are expected to be available within five to 10 years. Versions able to nav- igate under most conditions may take 10 to 20 years. Based on focus groups in Atlanta, Denver and Chi- cago, KPMG predicts au- tonomous "mobility-on-de- mand" services — think Uber and Lyft without a driver — will result in double-digit increases in travel by people in two age groups: those over 65, and those 16 to 24. Vehicles traveled a record 3.1 trillion miles in the U.S. last year. Increased trips in autonomous cars by those two age groups would boost miles traveled by an addi- tional 2 trillion miles an- nually by 2050, KPMG cal- culated. If self-driving cars without passengers start running errands, the in- crease could be double that. And if people in their middle years, when driving is at its peak, also increase their travel, that yearly total could reach 8 trillion miles. "This could be massive," Sil- berg said. Driverless cars are ex- pected to make travel both safer and cheaper. With hu- man error responsible for 90 percent of traffic acci- dents, they're expected to sharply reduce accidents, driving down the cost of insurance and repairs. But the biggest cost of car travel is drivers' time, said Don MacKenzie, a Univer- sity of Washington trans- portation researcher. That cost comes down dramati- cally when people can use their travel time produc- tively on other tasks. A study by MacKenzie and other researchers pub- lished in the journal Trans- portation Research: Part A estimates that the vehicles can cut the cost of travel by as much as 80 percent. That in turn drives up miles trav- eled by 60 percent. There's a fork ahead in this driverless road, says a reportbyLaurenIsaac,man- ager of sustainable trans- portation at WSP/Parsons Brinckerhoff, that envisions eitherutopia oranightmare. In the best case, con- gestion is reduced because driverless cars and trucks are safer and can travel faster with reduced space between them. Highway lanes can be narrower be- cause vehicles won't need as much margin for error. There will be fewer acci- dents to tie up traffic. But those advantages will be limited as long as driver- less cars share roads with conventional cars, likely for decades. But that scenario de- pends on a societal shift from private vehicle owner- ship to commercial fleets of driverless cars that can be quickly summoned with a phone app. Driverless fleets would have to become su- per-efficient carpools, pick- ing up and dropping off multiple passengers travel- ing in the same direction. A study last year by the International Transport Fo- rum, a transportation pol- icy think tank, simulated the impact on traffic in Lis- bon, Portugal, if conven- tional cars were replaced with driverless cars that take either a single passen- ger at a time or several pas- sengers together. It found that as long as half of travel is still carried out by conventional cars, total vehicle miles trav- eled will increase from 30 to 90 percent, suggesting that even widespread shar- ing of driverless cars would mean greater congestion for a long time. TECHNOLOGY Willrobotcarsbedriving traffic congestion off a cliff? ERICRISBERG—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS,FILE A Google self-driving car goes on a test drive near the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. www.wildwillyssmokehouse.com Wild Willy's Smokehouse BBQ Equipment Supply 8064StateHWY99E,LosMolinos across from the Mill Stream Shopping Center 530200-0656Tues.-Sat.11am-5pm Voted Best BBQ Equipment SPRING & SUMMER IS SUPER SALES TIME! 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