I firmly believe the solution is autonomous shuttles, not cars. Imagine having bus routes that can dynamically change and adapt to demand. Say we replace every bus with 2 smaller shuttles: during normal service the route could have the same capacity, but if there is an extraordinary event (sports event for example) you could divert them from the low-demand areas to the extraordinary-demand zone.
During lower demand times, you can also have more routes at no extra cost. If you’re clever and make an app to call the shuttle (think Uber but through pre-established routes) the demand can be determined in real time to ensure you don’t have empty shuttles.
And because they’re bigger than passenger cars you’re still increasing the ratio of passengers per vehicle, unlike robotaxis which merely replace private cars, with mostly 1- or 2-passenger trips.
Cities that have studied it believe on-demand car service is necessary (but often much more expensive) to reaching 100% transit coverage. But they also said you could reach like 95% with just busses.
I firmly believe the solution is autonomous shuttles, not cars. Imagine having bus routes that can dynamically change and adapt to demand. Say we replace every bus with 2 smaller shuttles: during normal service the route could have the same capacity, but if there is an extraordinary event (sports event for example) you could divert them from the low-demand areas to the extraordinary-demand zone.
During lower demand times, you can also have more routes at no extra cost. If you’re clever and make an app to call the shuttle (think Uber but through pre-established routes) the demand can be determined in real time to ensure you don’t have empty shuttles.
And because they’re bigger than passenger cars you’re still increasing the ratio of passengers per vehicle, unlike robotaxis which merely replace private cars, with mostly 1- or 2-passenger trips.
Cities that have studied it believe on-demand car service is necessary (but often much more expensive) to reaching 100% transit coverage. But they also said you could reach like 95% with just busses.