[nkoren]

Okay, so we definitely agree that automation-driven traffic-less utopia is a red herring! Certainly if personal vehicles are replaced 1:1 by automated personal vehicles, congestion will, on average, get worse. Even if they're replaced by automated taxis -- eliminating the need for parking -- this will lead to at least a ~30% increase in vehicles actively on the road due to empty vehicle movements. And that's before you factor in induced demand, which would be significant.

Where I think we disagree is here:

> we have the sharing aspect of the issue largely figured out already.

No, we really haven't. With non-automated vehicles, sharing only works in situations where you can amortise the cost of a driver. This requires maintaining an average occupancy of > 25 people, which in turn limits you to fixed routes at fixed schedules. Hence, bad for serving incidental demand. Automated vehicles open up the possibility of having a range of smaller vehicles that are demand-responsive yet shared. This would bridge the gap between current private and public transport options, serving a substantial travel regime where current technologies are inefficient.

[skgoa]

I agree, shared automated small shuttle buses that travel on ad-hoc generated/adapted routes are probably going to be a thing. BTW thanks for this thought-provocing discussion.

[nkoren]

Likewise! :-)