google car driverless self-driving Google

Google's self-driving driving automobile technology could lead to more densely populated cities that are twice their current size, according to Brian Wang at Next Big Future.

From the outset of its driverless car project, Google has emphasized that humans are unreliable drivers and that a robotic driving system will be safer. Indeed, Google's self-driving automobiles have already clocked 700,000 road miles without so much as a speeding ticket. That's a safer driving record than most humans can claim.

So imagine a world where the driverless car is the norm. It would enable cars to pass each other more safely without any alterations or additions to current road infrastructure. Wang says road carrying capacity could be increased up to four times, which means cities could accommodate more people's transportation needs without a major redesign.

This might sound unlikely, but consider China. The percentage of Chinese people living in cities quadrupled in the last fifty years, in part because of improved transportation, according to Karen C. Seto of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

It's normally an expensive investment in infrastructure to accommodate a population boom, but "automatic cars" don't need this. Here's Wang:
