News Finding: That's cheaper than downtown parking - and often more efficient than driving a few miles to park in a cheaper area.
Paper Finding: The second wave is also damped by the control law, but its presence for a period of the active control accounts for the difference relative to the period where no waves occurred in the uncontrolled period at the start of the experiment.
News Context: Creating a traffic jam and moving very slowly in it would cost at little as $0.29 an hour in San Francisco, Millard-Ball's model showed; moving at 8.7 miles per hour, the average for the evening rush hour in that city in 2017, would imply a cost of $1.98 per hour. That's cheaper than downtown parking - and often more efficient than driving a few miles to park in a cheaper area. Millard-Ball calculated that cruising while waiting for the owner-passenger would be the most cost-effective option for 40 percent of trips to downtown San Francisco.
Paper Context: By examining the trajectories ( Figure 5 ), it is apparent that the control law is able to eliminate the initially present wave, but another wave is generated during the control period. The second wave is also damped by the control law, but its presence for a period of the active control accounts for the difference relative to the period where no waves occurred in the uncontrolled period at the start of the experiment. To conclude, these experiments demonstrate that traffic flow control via low penetration rate automated vehicles is in fact possible.