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You don't have to have the cars being "driverless taxis" to be more efficient in use of roads, there are lots of other options that might involve sharing cars w

You don't have to have the cars being "driverless taxis" to be more efficient in use of roads, there are lots of other options that might involve sharing cars with several neighbors, that the driverless feature makes much more feasible. While there may be some people who use driverless cars less efficently than they use cars today, I have no doubt it would be more than balanced out by people who would be glad to save some money and don't need full ownership of a car. I really don't see a scenario where cars are circling for hours in busy parts of the city. At the very least it could be smart enough to go wait somewhere out of the way. At least in US cities, people wouldn't tolerate that if it was significant enough to make a difference.

tslug 11y ago
Agreed. With self-driven cars, you can imagine scenarios like hand-offs, where you ferry multiple passengers at a discounted rate over a common leg of a trip, and then they transfer to separate cars to go the last leg of their journey to their separate destinations, also possibly sharing with other passengers interested in only that leg, who might also be transferring onto new cars to get to their ultimate destination. You can basically specify your tolerance (100ft to 1mi) for walking and thus allow even steeper discounts and more travel options for the self-driving cars. You can hit occupancy and distance-traveled efficiency with this that we've never come close to before, and if the pricing is sexy enough by comparison (and it should be), it's going to be the option most people use, because most people can barely pay their bills. They will still be saving time over waiting on bus transfers, which are incredibly slow by comparison.