Yeah...see below. I work downtown, I see (not kidding) 20-40 Waymos a day, in not much time on the road downtown.
I work downtown, I see (not kidding) 20-40 Waymos a day, in not much time on the road downtown. I would estimate that maybe 10% of the time, there's a passenger in the car. So, no, the case for "this is more cost-effective than bus service" is nowhere even close to being made.
If it DOES end up being made, someday, that's great. I'm a fan of us getting to the best possible outcome in terms of actually providing transportation, and doing so in the most cost-effective way. But I don't think that single driverless cars seem like a fix that should totally replace mass transit.
AND, understand that the public almost always subsidizes mass transit to make it affordable to lower income folks (who heavily depend on it). So, there's that as well. If it costs Poor Peter $25 to get to work and home each day, instead of $6, dude is gonna be fucked. Public transportation is a public service, in part. It is almost never intended or designed to be profitable or even break-even. Fares help defray costs, even in most of the best-designed systems; they don't cover all the costs.