Vans exist, and rides can be pooled in denser areas. I imagine a 24-hour robovan with multiple paying passengers at a time would pay itself off relatively quick

Vans exist, and rides can be pooled in denser areas. I imagine a 24-hour robovan with multiple paying passengers at a time would pay itself off relatively quickly. People here like to whine that this would be recreating the bus, not realizing that the reason buses suck is because they have rigid departure schedules, and fixed startpoints and endpoints. People mainly take Ubers over the bus because they're much more flexible.