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If self-driving vehicles become common, there is no real reason to own a vehicle besides extremely heavy utilisation or aesthetics. A public grid of transport i

If self-driving vehicles become common, there is no real reason to own a vehicle besides extremely heavy utilisation or aesthetics. A public grid of transport is a natural outcome of removing the transport driver bottleneck. Heavily travelled routes will see buses and mass options dynamically (why bother with routes and schedules?) and requests not efficiently served could be handled by unit transport. One might pay extra for direct per-unit transport or pay less for hub-spoke transfer routing. The options are quite intriguing.

Tiktaalik 9y ago
There are already examples of routeless public transport, which is in third world countries with private, relatively poor quality mini bus based public transport. As transit systems become more developed they graduate toward fixed routes with larger capacity buses because it is the most efficient way of transporting people. This is why we've seen Lyft move toward this as well (reinventing the bus). It will be interesting to see how autonomous vehicles change public transit as the technology develops, but I would not be surprised if the utopian vision of public transit that delivers the user to their exact destination never becomes a reality.
- justinjlynn 9y ago
  It's sadly likely to be true that, unless someone finds some way to implement corruption features in such a system, that it is unlikely to replace taxi, private and mass transport. However, one can dream.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Ah, but why is it more efficient? Sure, there's some energy savings, but not that much. The main reason is having fewer drivers per passenger. But when there are no drivers, that doesn't apply.
  - Tiktaalik 9y ago
    The main efficiency comes from simplifying the route. Routing to the exact final destination takes too much time. People seem to think algorithms and computers will change this fact, but this hasn't appeared yet and is unlikely to.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      Who cares if it takes time, if car time becomes cheap? That's the whole point. Time is not a cost in itself, the cost comes from the resources being spent during that time. If the resources/time ratio drops, the total cost remains the same even as you expand the time used.
joe_the_user 9y ago
Well, Self-driving cars will have to pass through the stages of rare, occasional, common and universal and each of these is going to have an impact. Especially, Americans have billions of dollars invested in their cars and many them cannot afford to buy a new car at a moments notice. I hate driving but I have a car because I live an area where it's necessary. Once you own a car, each drive is fairly cheap (cheaper than public transit, sadly) because you're effectively expanding money you've spent on your car. So a lot of people, especially poorer people, will keep the cars they have unless Lyft/Uber/something gets a whole cheaper. Maybe the final outcome you describe will happen but we'll have to survive the process of transition first, process that may a change a lot before it finishes.

Tiktaalik 9y ago

There are already examples of routeless public transport, which is in third world countries with private, relatively poor quality mini bus based public transport. As transit systems become more developed they graduate toward fixed routes with larger capacity buses because it is the most efficient way of transporting people. This is why we've seen Lyft move toward this as well (reinventing the bus). It will be interesting to see how autonomous vehicles change public transit as the technology develops, but I would not be surprised if the utopian vision of public transit that delivers the user to their exact destination never becomes a reality.

justinjlynn 9y ago
It's sadly likely to be true that, unless someone finds some way to implement corruption features in such a system, that it is unlikely to replace taxi, private and mass transport. However, one can dream.
icebraining 9y ago
Ah, but why is it more efficient? Sure, there's some energy savings, but not that much. The main reason is having fewer drivers per passenger. But when there are no drivers, that doesn't apply.
- Tiktaalik 9y ago
  The main efficiency comes from simplifying the route. Routing to the exact final destination takes too much time. People seem to think algorithms and computers will change this fact, but this hasn't appeared yet and is unlikely to.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Who cares if it takes time, if car time becomes cheap? That's the whole point. Time is not a cost in itself, the cost comes from the resources being spent during that time. If the resources/time ratio drops, the total cost remains the same even as you expand the time used.

joe_the_user 9y ago

Well, Self-driving cars will have to pass through the stages of rare, occasional, common and universal and each of these is going to have an impact. Especially, Americans have billions of dollars invested in their cars and many them cannot afford to buy a new car at a moments notice. I hate driving but I have a car because I live an area where it's necessary. Once you own a car, each drive is fairly cheap (cheaper than public transit, sadly) because you're effectively expanding money you've spent on your car. So a lot of people, especially poorer people, will keep the cars they have unless Lyft/Uber/something gets a whole cheaper. Maybe the final outcome you describe will happen but we'll have to survive the process of transition first, process that may a change a lot before it finishes.