Electric self-driving taxis are going to be big in the medium-term. Or some other personal transportation method. Static routes and stations are not really up to the job.
(Edit: not that these necessarily need car parks, but they'll need to wait somewhere when they're not carrying passengers)
> Electric self-driving taxis are going to be big in the medium-term.
This claim has been made for years now and a number of big companies like Google, Uber and Tesla have tried to jump into this market, but does this hold up?
I vaguely recall a self driving taxi service being active in some areas, but how are they doing?
Anyway, static routes and stations work fine for big parts of e.g. the Netherlands, but you need a good structure of bus routes and transit hubs. It's a fact that it takes longer than driving for most trips though and IMO the cost should be a lot lower, but that's the tradeoff made.
In my regional UK city, most of my trips look something like: X minutes by car/taxi (although driving you need to park, and taxi you need to wait), 1.5-2X to cycle (direct but need to contend with hills, rain and much increased risk), and 2-4X to use public transport (total time, door-to-door, need to rush to get the thing and wait outdoors for 5-10 minutes) (2X being the ideal case of home to centre, 4X for point-to-point two places outside the centre).
It's not even remotely competitive, and for that reason private cars are used for some ridiculously high proportion of journeys (90% of passenger miles overall).
In the UK only 17% of commuters use public transport, and 5% use "other" including bicycle/motorcycle/taxi.
> 1.5-2X to cycle (direct but need to contend with hills, rain and much increased risk)
I think a lot of what you're saying can be solved with cheaper ebikes and better bike infrastructure. Even the rain :-)
If it rains a lot you put on a big bike poncho, which turns you into a big sail and slows you down, and that's where the <<e>>bike part of ebike comes in, since you pump up the assist and still go fast.
Your experience matches mine here in Australia, and it's fine justification for why we don't take public transport, but not why there shouldn't be more and better public transport. I would much much prefer to be taking a train from nearby into the CBD as it is faster point to point, more predictable and less stressful. The trouble is I live too far away from a station so every train journy starts with 30 minutes of car travel in the wrong direction.
The consensus seems to be on my side in spite of lower share of total commutes, because housing near stations is significantly more expensive. From that I infer two things, public transport is desired, and there's not enough of it to support demand.
I agree it's something that would be nice, but it's so far away - decades at the current rate. We can't even build housing in the UK, never mind infrastructure or industry.
(Edit: not that these necessarily need car parks, but they'll need to wait somewhere when they're not carrying passengers)