> Waymo becomes most interesting as an alternative to public transit. I really wonder what this looks like logistically, when you realize how inefficient it is

> Waymo becomes most interesting as an alternative to public transit. I really wonder what this looks like logistically, when you realize how inefficient it is for everyone to be in their own individual Waymo during rush hour. The obvious first step is: > Many people who currently drive themselves would probably be happy to carpool in a self-driving vehicle if it’s reliable and easy But if it's a 4-person vehicle, I'm not sure that's enough -- that's still a lot of vehicles clogging bridges and tunnels. And if you get to 12-person self-driving minibuses, it feels like too much time picking up and dropping people off if you're trying to stick to one vehicle. So I kind of wonder if there will be intermediate ~20-person self-driving buses to bring people in and out of cities, that respond instantly to demand? So in the suburbs, you take an 8-minute individual Waymo that brings you to a perfectly timed Waymo Bus that you wait 3 minutes for, get on with 19 other people for 42 minutes, everybody gets off at the same point at the edge of downtown, and everybody gets into carpooling individual Waymos already waiting, so you take 7 mimnutes to get to your office, dropping off 2 people along the same route you would have taken anyways. But the buses don't have fixed routes or stops or timetables -- they just aggregate the demand along the common long corridors. Essentially replacing light commuter rail.