New research has uncovered a potential issue with autonomous vehicles: parking, according to an article by Auto Inc.

Imagine the scenario where you and your family are dropped off by your electric car in the center of the city. However, like most already know, parking in the city is expensive, so rather than park, your vehicle cruises around the city until you’re done.

“Parking prices are what get people out of their cars and on to public transit, but autonomous vehicles have no need to park at all,” said Adam Millard-Ball, an associate professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “They can get around paying for parking by cruising. They will have every incentive to create havoc.”

In Millard’s research paper, “The Autonomous Vehicle Problem,” he estimates that just the presence of the relatively small amount of 2,000 self-driving vehicles in the San Francisco area will slow traffic to less than two miles per hour.

Millard also posed a solution of regulation and congestion pricing that may ease the transition into the driverless world. Self-driving owners could be charged just a flat fee upon entering a city, or more sophisticated models could charge by miles driven, or assign different fees to particular streets.

In the future, though, a smart city model may exist. By using the model, all of the cars are monitored and controlled to optimize traffic patterns, which would circumvent the problem created by self-driving cars.

To read the full article, click here.