Self-Driving Cars vs Transit

Why would self-driving cars be better than mass-transit?

Self-driving cars don't necessarily help. Really, it's more a routing problem. Buses with human drivers would probably be fine if you could come up with a working system to route them on demand. Self-driving might save money in the long run, but cars are probably not as efficient as buses in a big city.

Seems like it could go either way. The hope is that self-driving cars will alleviate stop-and-go traffic (they have faster reflexes and better ability too coordinate than humans). Further, fewer cars could support more people (not everyone will want to own their own car if Lyft can get them to and from work for $0.50/mile). That said, humans are uncanny in their ability to consume (faster network speeds, better processors, cheaper storage, etc).

I'm very much looking forward to self driving cars to save us. It's hard for public transit to cover enough of a city, but we can easily build trunk lines or commuter lines and have self driving cars carry people the last mile. Public transit could then focus its limited dollars on rail for the most heavily trafficked corridors. No more slow and infrequent public buses. This would also encourage density around stations, while allowing those who want their back yards to live further out

Subways/trains do this! You don't need self-driving cars to make this world a reality!

Self driving cars still require a significant amount of surface area that could better be utilized for: housing, bike transit, pedestrian areas, parks.And though coordination by autonomous vehicles could cut down on highway congestion, speeds within the city are unlikely to match what a subway system could offer. You don't want cars rushing through your neighborhood at 60 mph, no matter if it's a machine or a human behind the wheel.

Cars of any sort, self-driving or otherwise, do not solve traffic any more than Uber does because you need to have enough of them to get everyone to and from work at basically the same time. Trains are the only way to address traffic. Trains are self-driving. Europe already has the better self-driving system. It's just boring because self-driving is much easier when you build the road to support it instead of removing all constraints and adding GPUs, lidar sensors, cameras and an army of fa

"Driverless car" is probably not the outcome for autonomous vehicles. At one end of the scale, cities will use road space vastly more efficiently with optimized vehicles for groups of riders, and at the other end of the scale, short-haul air travel will be challenged by door-to-door 150mph+ highway vehicles. None of these will look much like a personal car, and only the wealthy will consider owning one that will become rapidly obsolete and have a meagre duty cycle a sensible idea. For

Self-driving cars will likely increase accidents before they reduce them, if ever. It is pointless to outfit our roads and highways 100% with self-driving cars carrying only a handful, if that, of people, which is the only way you get to that unrealistic ideal of utilization. Trains, subways, and buses are "self-driving" technologies that we already have and are far more efficient at solving these problems. It is incredibly inefficient to have low passenger vehicles already. Making the

"The future of the car is self-driving, but the future of transportation is not the car"