I don't necessarily see that as a drawback. If the technology for self-driving vehicles really matures, I think it could be a big boon for mass transit.
The reason is a combination of two factors:
(1) Transit will probably always need buses. Rail and subway are great at certain specific things (very dense areas), but they are expensive to build and have trouble achieving good coverage of an entire city.
(2) Buses tend to be big and hold ~50 passengers. Why? Mostly, I believe, because bus drivers have to be paid a salary. You're pushed into choosing large vehicles to try to amortize that cost across more passengers.
What if you could take away that constraint by eliminating the bus driver? Some of those 50-passenger buses could each be replaced with (say) three 16-passenger buses. You'd have a choice. You'd no longer be forced to try to consolidate by reducing the number of routes or the frequency on the routes. Both of these things (long walk to a stop, long wait for a bus) are major reasons why many people don't like riding the bus.
And if you can make transit more convenient for people, you can get more of a critical mass of people using it.
The reason is a combination of two factors:
(1) Transit will probably always need buses. Rail and subway are great at certain specific things (very dense areas), but they are expensive to build and have trouble achieving good coverage of an entire city.
(2) Buses tend to be big and hold ~50 passengers. Why? Mostly, I believe, because bus drivers have to be paid a salary. You're pushed into choosing large vehicles to try to amortize that cost across more passengers.
What if you could take away that constraint by eliminating the bus driver? Some of those 50-passenger buses could each be replaced with (say) three 16-passenger buses. You'd have a choice. You'd no longer be forced to try to consolidate by reducing the number of routes or the frequency on the routes. Both of these things (long walk to a stop, long wait for a bus) are major reasons why many people don't like riding the bus.
And if you can make transit more convenient for people, you can get more of a critical mass of people using it.