Driverless Cars: End of Road Rage?

A recent BBC article got me thinking about driver etiquette in the presence of driverless cars. Would drivers really be rude to autonomous vehicles (AVs)? I am more optimistic than Matthew Wall from BBC about the prospects of AVs and the behavior of human drivers. Here's why ...

Prospects of AVs

Let us first address the potential skepticism of people towards driverless cars. The demand for driverless cars will be driven (pun intended) by people that don't want to drive - people that either don't already have a car, or don't want to have a car. If you are a skeptic of driverless cars, sorry, you really don't have a choice. Barring a legislative initiative to outlaw driverless cars (for which there's scant evidence), you just have to live with the AVs. Consideration of safety, the huge number of cab rides taken and the right of mobility for the elderly likely will trump the resistance of the skeptics.

Driver Behavior

Clearly, AVs are still learning to deal with human drivers. Yes, it might be frustrating for human drivers to deal with AVs, especially, on local roads with slow and unexpected traffic.

But, I am optimistic that there will not be bullying of the AVs by human drivers for too long. Why? Like most technology products, we should expect that AVs will collect a lot of data, including, the places they were at a particular time, the people, cars and other sights they have seen etc, nicely meta-tagged and searchable. This will be a treasure trove for all manners of governmental agencies.

The transportation departments would want some of this information to predict traffic patterns and to plan for future construction. Welfare departments would want to understand passenger patterns and the improvements in services they can provide.

The most intriguing use in the context of driver behavior is the video footage collected by the AVs. Similar to (private) video recordings of public spaces, the video footage of the AVs can likely be asked to be presented for a police investigation through a subpoena. Even more intriguing is the use of meta--tags. Can the law enforcement agencies be able to search and quickly get through all the AVs' video footage at a certain time and place? I don't see why not! In fact, we shouldn't be surprised if the law enforcement directly submit the subpoena to the manufacturer (or software provider) of the car itself, regardless of who owns the car. I am sure there will be other uses for law enforcement analysis such as improvement in gun shot detection and other major crime detection.

Coming back to driver behavior, if you think you are going to have a bout of rage at the AVs, you might want to think of all the video footage captured. :) You should expect the video of the incident ready and packaged for the police, before you are done with your rage.

I don't know about you, but, once AVs become prevalent, I am going to put my legs up on the dashboard and let the machines do the driving. I love driving, but, it won't be as much fun with big brother watching!

A Point System to Promote Competition in F1 Racing

F1 bosses have been agonizing over the last decade about how to make the field more competitive. Dominant teams have changed, but, the lop-sided results have continued. Recent change in qualifying and the change back have not gone down really well. But, there might be a way to promote competition with just making a change to how the points are awarded. Change the reward system and I think the driver and team behavior will change!

Under the current system, the winner of the race is awarded 25 points regardless of the margin between the first place and the second place drivers. The points are awarded in the following order: 25, 18, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1. The drivers in the front can't hope to get more than the 25, even if he were very very good. The drivers at the back can't change the difference (of 7 points at least) to the front runner even if they were closely matched to the front runner. This state of affairs can be changed!

The Relative Position based Scoring (RPS) for Multi-player Multi-event Competition

The new point system I propose will still award 1 point to the 10^th placed driver. But, the rest of the drivers are only guaranteed 1 more point than the driver below them. The rest of the points are awarded based on how far the driver's timing is from the 10^th placed driver. The points distance is measured in the difference in the final race times of the drivers, treating the race times of the 10 drivers as a population sample of a normal distribution curve. Over multiple events (21 in 2016), the normal distribution assumption is likely to be true, even though individual races might not adhere to the normal distribution curve since we will have 10 drivers over those events.

If you are a driver in i^th position, your points are

RPS_i=11-i+(101-55)*(Race time_i - Race time₁₀)/Σ_j(Race time_j - Race time₁₀)

This formula attempts to distribute the total number of points (101) among the 10 race drivers, with the 10^th placed driver getting 1 point.

To generalize this to a N-competitors event that awards T total points and the N^th competitor getting 1 point, the i^th competitor points are

RPS_i=N+1-i+(T-N*(N+1)/2)*(Race time_i - Race time_N)/Σ_j(Race time_j - Race time_N)

So, How does this new system change the points?

To illustrate the RPS points, the Australian GP race points will be modified as follows:

	Driver	Team	Grid	Race Time	Points	RPS Points
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	2	1:48:15.565	25	22
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1	+0:08.060	18	20
3	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	3	+0:09.643	15	19
4	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	8	+0:24.330	12	15
5	Felipe Massa	Williams	6	+0:58.979	10	9
6	Romain Grosjean	Haas F1	19	+1:12.081	8	6
7	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	10	+1:14.199	6	4
8	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	16	+1:15.153	4	3
9	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Toro Rosso	7	+1:15.680	2	2
10	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso	5	+1:16.833	1	1

With apriori knowledge of the point system, the race will likely be more competitive and exciting! Why do I say that?

Provides Excitement, Even When a Driver is Really Better than the Rest

The first placed driver can potentially get 56 points if he is much better than the rest of the field because the rest of the driver could end up with 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 points. I am assuming, of course, that the race winner is way ahead and the rest of the field is bunched up together. This provides huge motivation for the front runner to keep pushing, even when a win is guaranteed. The front runner racing hard till the race end has got to be exciting for the fans!

Rewards Consistency of Car and Driver

Given that a race winner can win big, the cost of inconsistency (of car or driver) can be pretty high. A driver (and car) that is consistently good can win ultimately over a driver that has large ups and downs still.

Low Risk of Race Manipulation

The 10^th placed driver is fighting for his 1 point. So, there is little risk of race manipulation from the bottom.

Makes Team Orders Near Impossible

Even in a team that's heads and shoulders over the rest of the field like Mercedes was last year, the two drivers will constantly be battling each other because there's always the possibility of scoring high (56 points) when your opponent (and teammate) could crash out of the event. If the drivers are evenly matched, the team order can potentially only provide an extra point, instead of 7 points now. So, team orders will be less likely, given all the emotional cost involved (Think Red Bull at its peak with Mark Webber getting the raw end of the deal!)

So, What's the Downside

The biggest downside is that fans won't know the points automatically and immediately after the race winner is known. The 10^th driver needs to finish the race before the math can be completed, even for the race winner. But, that's a minor downside compared to the advantages the change in reward system brings. 

Also, RPS doesn't prevent situations where two drivers from the same team are at the front of the race, but, one of them is just helping the other win the championship. (Think Schumacher and Barrichello in the 2000s!) Especially, in a race like Monaco where overtaking is hard, RPS might exacerbate the situation. But, many things will have to go right for the front runner. Two drivers in a dominant team with one of them having no aspirations to championship at a race event where overtaking is hard and they are in a 1-2 position. And, even in that situation, the driver at the front is pushing hard till the end of the race to maximize his points. That has to be exciting for the fans!

RPS Can be Implemented Now!

No changes needed to teams, drivers or race venues - RPS is simple change in scoring. Change in reward system is always the best way to change competitive behavior. This applies to individuals and teams (and corporations). Drivers and teams will be motivated to keep pushing the hardest they can till the end! So, is F1 is ready for RPS?