I have never been to New York but I do think the sentiment if you can make it there then you can make it anywhere is relevant to the driverless cars as if they can make it in a city then they can probably make it anywhere else.
I must admit I did find some irony in a recent report that Toyota were pausing their driverless car program as their all seeing driverless car had crashed in to someone with impaired vision. Usually in an 80/20 development the later gets looked at last, but for cities this is where you are most likely to encounter the 20% and they will need to be catered for as the person with the impaired vision highlights.
I don’t envy the driverless cars programmers job in programming it’s cars to deal with say Oxford Street in London as the last time I was there it was manic, taxis,buses, weaving cursing delivery cyclists,tourists blindly walking out from nowhere and how do you program the car to accept that Oxford Street might actually be blocked with a large pink protesters boat!!.
I was watching an old Top Gear repeat recently in which Clarkson/May/Hammond and the Stig did a race across London and it would be interesting to re-run the race and include a driverless car into the mix. I am torn between whether the driverless car would have May in the back eulogising about the number of micro computers running the car or Clarkson who would have put something odd in the back like a four poster bed and a large screen TV.
Although on reflection London is probably in the scheme of things quite an easy programmable city to tackle for driverless car programmers as British drivers are quite polite and tame compared to other countries.
The programmers may have more head scratching with Paris especially the roundabout around the Arc de Triomphe where anything seems to go for drivers trying to get across it. What about preparing a driverless car to go into battle with Italian car/motorbike driving fanatics in Rome where it seems to have its own rules or even Athens where the local authorities have played hide and seek with the road signs and will require full use of the on-board cameras available to drive through.
I think driverless cars will differ from the song in that it will be Delhi rather than New York that will determine if driverless cars can make it anywhere. Having been to Delhi and seen the motley collection of vehicles fighting their way across the city is amazing and not only that the vehicles are often overloaded with people hanging onto any external part of the vehicle as it makes its way through the city, will driverless cars continue to allow Delhi residents this luxury. Not to mention the various wildlife to factor in cows everywhere and even saw a camel pulling a trailer the wrong way down a road, although not sure in Delhi if there is such thing as a right and wrong way down a road. Also how do you program the usage of driverless cars horn which appears to more on than off from dawn to dusk.
So perhaps if a driverless car can make it in Delhi than perhaps it can make it anywhere.
Driverless Cars will never take off 