Not sure if I'm excited about that. This would double the traffic during rush hour. I'd sincerely hope they introduce a tax on vehicles driven without driver.
I sincerely hope they do the exact opposite. Taxes are often added to behaviors the state wants to limit (ie. Sin tax on Alcohol/Cigarettes/etc), it would be in everyone's best interest to convert to driverless cars so the tax should be on people without driverless cars and/or more importantly on people who don't carpool.
The only reason we don't tax by usage is because we don't have the data. If cars have that data, it would be by far the superior system. Why tax someone driving 100mi the same as someone driving 100k miles?
The reason being that a car driving itself around with no one in it is essentially wasting resources and spewing out emissions. The example comes up often in what-ifs about self-driving cars.
Self driving vehicles allow ride-sharing to be far more effective as you won't have to pay for the cost of the driver. Right now bus routes are studied, and are used less often than they could be due to the last mile problem, and should we grow the scale of HOV lanes, ride sharing will be further encouraged. We could take a fleet of minibuses and focus on the real time optimization problem, rather than making car travel more luxurious but also make congestion far worse.
1. self-driving cars make more efficient use of the roadway
2. parking lots could (partially) be converted into roadway, or even better, actual business, so there will be less road to "outside of town".
It would mean the car doesn't have to drive off to park somewhere, but to just go pick up the next person. I'd imagine it would be possible to have enough cars on the road so the wait is negligible, but still have markedly less cars on the road. Might this be a realistic future?
Everyone within ten hours of a ski resort has already thought of that. Prepare for ski traffic to get several times worse, and lift lines to stretch up the mountain.
Food, lift tickets, etc will also probably get more expensive if it becomes easier to avoid lodging, which is a critical revenue component of functioning ski towns.
There are two use cases that particularly excite me:
* For commuters, get a ride from your own vehicle to work, and then have it park cheaply outside of town (instead of paying for a parking spot close to work, which is common where I live).
* Have a self-driving van with a bed, have it drive you to a skiing resort while you sleep. Go to sleep in the car Friday night, have it drive at safe speeds using smaller roads, wake up where you wanted to go. Go to bed Sunday evening, wake up back at home. Shower, dress, go to work.