[ItsMonkk]

The typical car is on the road 1% of the time. The typical driver-less car will be on the road whenever possible, so will see 100x usage. Just 1% of cars being driver-less will therefore double cars on the road. That will go to things that are good - taking the kids to soccer practice, go to things that are neutral - sleeping in the car as it drives to the beach, and it will go to things that are wasteful, like shipping a single package to a single customer and then going back to the store. But traffic congestion scales exponentially, and cars don't scale at all. So in reality, the entirety of the city will be a traffic jam and you won't be able to get anywhere. Just as we've seen buying GPU's during the crypto shortage, the bots will win, your time can't compete with automation.

So in reality in a world that has driver-less cars, the first thing we will see is a congestion tax. And the first thing we would like to see as a result of that congestion tax is better public transportation. Driver-less buses will do well, especially if they have dedicated lanes. Trains will do better. If you think that you can avoid public spending on public transportation because driver-less cars will save you, you are mistaken. You should be funding that such that if driver-less cars become a reality, but even if they don't, you will be ready.

[MattPalmer1086]

Surely those 100% utilised driverless cars would reduce the other cars on the road?

[ItsMonkk]

I mentioned this in my post - soccer moms who used to drop off their kid and go home, then pick up their kid and go home will save an entire trip.

My argument is nothing more than a fairly obvious case of Jevon's paradox. If something becomes easier or cheaper, it gets used more. Our road networks can not handle being used more.

And there are other side effects of driver-less cars as well. If driver-less cars become a thing, people will slowly retire their cars and go driver-less. As that happens, the required parking lots in malls and offices and shopping areas will drop. It will start dropping the more driver-less cars are used. This will mean that these areas can now build on these parking lots. Malls might see high rise office buildings in their lots, shopping centers might see some nice 5-over-1's. This will allow the higher density, and higher density means the average person will travel less distance, so that could be a huge win. But they can only do that if the road network can handle the congestion, and they won't be able to handle it if you don't plan ahead with public transportation.

But we'll also see the other side, where people who used to not like driving, so they only lived 1 hour away from the office, now live 2 hours away from the office because they can now read in their car.

So once again, if cities are prepared their land owners could reap enormous profits up-zoning their parking lots into highly dense highly walk-able neighborhoods, and if they don't they will lose the ability for these investments to come. It's a first-mover advantage.