Your objection seems to be based on an implicit assumption that the drones would ride for free. I don't see any reason to believe it would happen that way. What

Your objection seems to be based on an implicit assumption that the drones would ride for free. I don't see any reason to believe it would happen that way. What public transit agency would ever agree to that? To me, it seems like a more reasonable assumption is that the drone operators would pay the transit agencies money. Since the buses are already going on those routes, the marginal cost for the transit agency should be nearly zero, so it should be easy to make a profit. So this seems like a good way for transit agencies to increase their funding with little downside.