Automotive / Cars
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Background: Drivers can signal their intent to turn or change lanes by using their turn signals (A.K.A. “blinkers”). Currently, a driver can express two concepts with these signals: “Left” “Right” The Issue: Sometimes, a driver’s might want to express a third concept: “Not turning” / “Continuing straight ahead” Proposal: The left and right brake lights…
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The Issue: Commuters often spend an hour or more in traffic every day. There are many chores in life that would be nice to handle in this hour, but it’s hard to (say) visit an optometrist while you’re in a car. Proposal: Until now, that is! This proposal is so simple, you’ll wonder why it…
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Background: When traveling in a vehicle, a person’s intuitive sense of speed is partly determined by the feeling of air movement. For example, going at 30 miles per hour on a bike (enclosed cabin: no) may feel faster than going 600 miles per hour in an airplane (enclosed cabin: yes). The issue: It’s important for…
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The issue: Imagine that you are driving a car down a narrow road and you see a person unloading groceries from a car trunk. There are two common options: Continue driving: hope the person unloading the car doesn’t walk out into the street Honk the horn, to inform the person unloading the car that you…
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Background: In many cities, there is no substantial funding for public transit. This results in extremely poor service (routes with minimal coverage of the city and few buses). This leads to a “death spiral” where people stop taking the (terrible) public transit, the service gets even worse, and so on. These problems can, in theory,…
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Background: In many cities, there are a large number of “almost-a-parking-spot” locations (for example, between two driveways) that can only fit an extremely small car. Additionally, most popular models of small cars have gotten substantially larger over time. For example, a 1959 Mini Cooper is 120 inches long, while a 2005 model is 143 inches…
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The issue: One transportation model used by ride-sharing cars (formerly called “taxis”) is the “carpool”-style trip, where multiple passengers are picked up and dropped off at various points along a mostly-shared route. (Lyft Line and Uber Pool are currently the most well-known of these.) This “carpool”-style trip is cheaper than a normal ride for each…
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Background: Phone map apps often have a few optional settings for a route, such as: Avoid highways (for driving) Fewer bus transfers (for public transit) Avoid hills (for walking) The issue: Sometimes, you want drive on the most scenic route from point A to point B, without too much concern about efficiency. For example, you might…
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Background: In most American cities, four-way intersections with stoplights are the most common form of traffic control. The issue: As a pedestrian, these intersections are frustrating: if the stoplights are not synchronized, you’ll randomly encounter red lights while walking from block to block. But even when lights are synchronized, they are synchronized for car driving…
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Background: In a hypothetical future where self-driving cars are increasingly common, they’ll have to do a really good job of automatically distinguishing between things that require sudden braking (e.g. a person in the roadway) and things that are OK to hit (e.g. a tumbling empty cardboard box). The issue: This is a hard problem. When…
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