It's more of a mixed bag in my book: - On the one hand, "self-driving cars" is a general problem of transporting anything from point A to point B without direc

It's more of a mixed bag in my book: - On the one hand, "self-driving cars" is a general problem of transporting anything from point A to point B without direct human intervention in a very complex space, we'll probably see a lot of things getting transported with cheap point to point solutions post the tech being widely available with some people aggregating pickups and drop offs for efficiency a la trains etc. - On the other hand, I expect a wildly high spike in traffic post these vehicles being more accessible, currently the largest limiting factor to a car being on the road is someone driving it, what happens exactly when practically everyone who can afford a car now can just send them off to do their daily todo list stuff like picking up groceries. There was a fun study[0] that showed car usage increased[0] on average. I suspect peoples opinions may shift as roads become more train-like with ever growing slow moving traffic of either empty cars doing tasks or people reading as they slow travel to their destination. Trains / buses on bus only routes / lanes restricted from being self-driving / premium lanes may be the only fast ways of getting around. - [0]: http://www.joanwalker.com/uploads/3/6/9/5/3695513/mustapha_et_al_-_final_transportation.pdf http://www.joanwalker.com/uploads/3/6/9/5/3695513/mustapha_e... - [1]: "while total VMT decreased slightly during the chauffeur week for the first subject, and hardly changed (on average) for the second subject, the remaining 11 subjects increased their auto travel. The increases in total VMT during the chauffeur week ranged from a low of 4% for one of the Millennials (from 532 to 554 miles) to a high of 341% for one of the Retirees (from 117 to 516 miles), with an overall increase of 83% for the entire sample (from 3,344 to 6,118 miles)." where VMT is "vehicle-miles traveled".