Raise the Hammer

Self-driving cars will be extremely useful but it'll simply be a Uber-style connection to public transit for a lot of people.

GO ran a DIAL-A-BUS service in the 1970s

We need Level 4 self-driving capability; ones legally certified to drive your kids unattended safely in the middle of a snowstorm; that may be a while yet.

Level 4 Self-driving cars would behave as automated taxis/ubers/zipcars/Hertz (no difference between them if they're auto-chauffering). Given a sufficiently large fleet roaming the city, they can automatically take a great best-fit route through the suburbs, scooping up a few people to take to the nearest rapid transit stop (subway, LRT, regional train, etc). It could cost the same as a bus fare or less, and if municipally operated, the transfer could be free.

This would be the best efficiency of roads; see Ryan's image why long-distance point A-to-B will still clog the roads. A freeway lane only carries about 2,000 cars per hour (tailgating less than 2 seconds -- only 3,600 seconds in 1 hour). A single GO train has as many seats as one freeway-lane-hour worth of traffic -- the 8 peak period Lakeshore West GO trains (timetabled 4:45 thru 5:45pm) carries as many people as the entire 401 width passing one point for the whole 1 hour. Even if you do some computerized platooning (automated safe tailgating) it would only increase road capacity to a certain point, and then still clog well below a 3-vehicle 15-segment LRT (e.g. 15,000 people per hour).

You just can't transpot a whole city's population using sole-occupant vehicles, during peak hour -- it just cannot be done clogging the roads. Doesn't matter if there is a driver or not.

I am looking forward to driverless cars, whether as an owner or a hailer (e.g. hailing a ZipCar (or Community CarShare) to come to me, Uber-style)

Comment edited by mdrejhon on 2015-10-31 23:38:26