I'm not sure how much difference there will be between autonomous ride hailing and autonomous public transit.
Surely you'll have "Uber Pool" for these services, basically from the outset. Some may pay a premium to give their kids a safe ride alone, etc. etc., but pooling rides makes complete sense.
Also, in my experience, school busses are somewhat a thing of the past. Parents line up for blocks dropping kids off, acting as individual chauffeurs.
I agree it will increase trip demand, but it could also easily decrease demand for parking in busy areas.
Long-term, it's easy to imagine that autonomous vehicles could provide much higher passenger throughput for a given road-area. Without human drivers to worry about, they only need narrow lanes, could talk to each other and draft, etc.
> Long-term, it's easy to imagine that autonomous vehicles could provide much higher passenger throughput for a given road-area
No this is nonsense. The gains, marginal as they are, would only exist in places like highways outside of cities where you can assume nothing is going to walk out in front of a car.
Surely you'll have "Uber Pool" for these services, basically from the outset. Some may pay a premium to give their kids a safe ride alone, etc. etc., but pooling rides makes complete sense.
Also, in my experience, school busses are somewhat a thing of the past. Parents line up for blocks dropping kids off, acting as individual chauffeurs.
I agree it will increase trip demand, but it could also easily decrease demand for parking in busy areas.
Long-term, it's easy to imagine that autonomous vehicles could provide much higher passenger throughput for a given road-area. Without human drivers to worry about, they only need narrow lanes, could talk to each other and draft, etc.