[xnx]

This is old thinking. With Uber-like services you don't have to hire drivers 8 hours at a time. Paying drivers when they aren't needed is very wasteful. That tax money would be better spent providing better ride services (e.g. flexible routes and schedules).

[supertrope]

One driver driving one passenger is inherently low capacity. It's taxi service. You pay more for taxi fare because it's door to door and capacity is far scarcer than bus/train seats.

Small vehicles decrease capacity of the public transit network and increase labor intensity. Good luck finding a CDL holder driver who will work as a "gig" worker. Vans are cheaper than $250K buses, but that means each bus that ever has more than a dozen riders at peak usage will require two drivers or even three to service. https://humantransit.org/2019/08/what-is-microtransit-for.ht...

[xnx]

> One driver driving one passenger is inherently low capacity.

Isn't capacity primarily about passenger-miles / time? Whatever vehicle size optimizes for this is probably better. During rush hours, it could definitely make sense to use big busses.

> You pay more for taxi fare because it's door to door and capacity is far scarcer than bus/train seats.

Hard to compare taxi fares to transit fares when transit fares do not fully pay for the service.

> Good luck finding a CDL holder driver who will work as a "gig" worker. Vans are cheaper than $250K buses

This is one of the strengths of these microtransit options, no specialty employees or vehicles.