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There is no world in which robotaxis exist that would inhibit robobuses and robobikes from also existing and being integrated into one coherent transportation n

There is no world in which robotaxis exist that would inhibit robobuses and robobikes from also existing and being integrated into one coherent transportation network. The existing toolkit of pricing controls makes it easy to pull a lever to get more people onto the smaller or shared vehicles as needed, and with roughly linear ability to expand the fleet in any of these axes, the roads they're running on already built and paid for, and the cost of deployment rapidly dropping, nothing will stop them from taking over in a span of 5-10 years. It'll be the biggest boon to urban transit we've ever seen, because what self-driving actually does is make modality, routing and scheduling less important to individual trip planning.

rglullis 4y ago
> the roads they're running on already built and paid for Roads still require maintenance, and without a profound change in how cities are organized, these costs are always going to be overwhelmingly large compared with the cost of everything else. > self-driving actually does is make modality, routing and scheduling less important to individual trip planning. That is the worst type of optimization. It still keeps people in desolate suburbia and makes millions of people across America with the sensation that "commute time" is a constant that can not be avoided, so it should be at least made comfortable. Investing to make the transportation systems smarter without even looking at how the urban spaces could be changed to get rid of cars is like the (myth) story of NASA putting millions of dollars to make a space pen, instead of using a pencil.