Could driverless cars make vehicle ferries redundant?

[PTR 444]

If driverless road vehicles become widespread, they will most likely revolutionise the fabric of mobility. For starters, many people will be willing to give up owning a car and only hire one as and when they need it. It’s uncertain whether there will be a mix of privately owned and on-demand vehicles, but let’s say we achieve a scenario where 100% of road vehicles are autonomous and rented out from hire companies, could this make vehicle ferries redundant?

Thinking about it, why would there be any need for cars to drive on and off of ferries when they aren’t owned by the user? You could alight your hired vehicle at the terminal, board the ferry and have another vehicle wait for you on the other side. Without the requirement to carry cars, ferries could become much smaller and cheaper to run as they wouldn’t need all that space to carry the cars that currently use them. It would also simplify the operation of autonomous cars on both sides of the English Channel, as English and French/EU vehicles wouldn’t need to be programmed to understand each other’s different driving laws.

I understand that there would still be a need for freight to be carried on certain routes, but this should be moved to rail as much as possible. Even so, most freight is dropped off and picked up at each end without the need for it to be accompanied by a driver during the ferry crossing, so with autonomous lorry operation this practice could be maintained.

As for people wishing to be “driven” onto the ferry, I can’t see many people being desperate for this, particularly in cases where you are required to disembark from your vehicle during crossing anyway. I guess there might be some people who will own their own autonomous vehicle and need that to go with them, but they could probably hire out a charter ferry or flight for that purpose.

Additionally, how could driverless vehicles affect the Channel Tunnel? For the same reasons as above, could we see the car shuttle replaced with a normal passenger train between Cheriton and Coquelles?

I’d be intrigued to find out how this is being approached by autonomous vehicle developers, and whether any forum members have their own thoughts on this.

 

[Dai Corner]

Why would you want to unload all your luggage at one port, carry it onto the ferry, keep an eye on it during the crossing, carry it off and load it into another car?

 

[High Dyke]

Not unless you make the cars amphibious.

 

[172007]

Yes, ferries would be redundant.

Driverless cars in the manner you suggest would not work as certanly in every European city there is not and never will be the road space / capacity. Currently each car on the road has a driver between 17 and 70 something amd how many pople in tje UK have a driving licence and have access to a car. With many oaps using public transport.

The ability to summon a driverless car will mean that everyone from probably an 8 year old going to his mates house will travel everywhere in a car. Each journey won't be 3 journeys, there and back but potentially 3 journeys rach way. Journey from the hub to pickup, the actual journey then an journey to the hub or next pickup. There will have to be hub carparks or loads of pods parked down streets and the number of car journeys would increase significantly.

 

[PTR 444]

Why would you want to unload all your luggage at one port, carry it onto the ferry, keep an eye on it during the crossing, carry it off and load it into another car?

In that case, why would you want to give up owning a car at all?

Driverless cars are likely to be extraordinarily expensive to purchase, but much cheaper to use as a taxi service without the need to pay a driver. That pushes the balance towards people hiring cars on demand, rather than keeping the same car throughout. Most users will be carrying hand luggage or a roll on suitcase at most, and for people with more luggage I’m sure there could be some sort of baggage drop off system at the ferry terminal.

 

[HSTEd]

In that case, why would you want to give up owning a car at all?

Driverless cars are likely to be extraordinarily expensive to purchase, but much cheaper to use as a taxi service without the need to pay a driver. That pushes the balance towards people hiring cars on demand, rather than keeping the same car throughout. Most users will be carrying hand luggage or a roll on suitcase at most, and for people with more luggage I’m sure there could be some sort of baggage drop off system at the ferry terminal.

If driverless cars reach full production they are likely to only be few thousands pounds more expensive than a conventional car.
The only extra stuff will be sensor hardware and computers, both of which will crash in price once production volume reaches the millions of units (as is the case with all mass production electronics).
In a competitive marketplace the software development costs will rapidly amortise to nothing.

Indeed there are some arguments that driverless cars might actually be cheaper than conventional cars, because a lot of expensive mechanical stuff can be dispensed with.
No need for uninterrupted views with large curved windscreens, no need for steering columns and mechanical backups etc.....

As for baggage drop off - that's going to be highly labour intensive....

EDIT:
Might just be an anecdotal experience of me growing up, but one of the key attractions of a car based holiday was that careful packing was not at all required.
If it would fit in the car and not obstruct the views out too much, you could take it.

With driverless cars the only restriction will be that the doors must close.

 

[Gloster]

Do you really think that enough people are going to leave their hermetically sealed little tin status symbols? Everybody will say it is a good idea, but in their case there is a good reason why it would be seriously detrimental to their life. We live in an age which sees having a car as a right and necessity in all circumstances, even if it spends most of its time parked.

 

[Western Lord]

Driverless cars are always just around the corner. Ten years ago it was within five years. You can build a driverless car that can be made to work passably in a city with grid pattern streets that are clearly marked in sunny Southern California, but getting something to work in Northern Europe in winter on narrow roads with grubby or non existent road markings is a lot more difficult. I am reminded of a BBC report several years ago when their reporter went to Sweden to see the latest Volvo driverless car and explained that they couldn't go on the public roads and had to stay on the test track as it had been snowing!
The idea that people will give up their cars in favour of hiring a driverless one is laughable. For a start how long are you expected to wait for it to turn up as opposed to jumping in your own car and just going. Then when it does turn up it might be filled with the detritus of the previous user, unless it is expected that the thing will be taken back to a depot between every trip and cleaned, a rather expensive and time consuming logistical operation.
Imagine a not untypical use that you might use a car for; taking the family to a country fete with a picnic in the boot. Parking is in a farmer's field next to the site. How do you get your driverless car to drive into a field and park in the appointed place ("start a new line over by that tree")?
People use their cars as an extension of their home with all sorts of things that they may or may not need on the journey readily to hand. Hiring a driverless car would mean having to carry everything around with you.

 

[edwin_m]

Even if no cars need to cross any body of water (which is improbable for the reasons set out above), there will still be a need for ferries to carry trucks (which probably already account for most of their volume in many cases). This might reduce a bit if some goods goes to container or to "unaccompanied" trailers, with the tractor unit staying on one side of the water in either case. But the need certainly won't disappear. There are also many things carried in vans, that for various reasons can't easily be unloaded and reloaded.

 

[renegademaster]

city with grid pattern streets that are clearly marked in sunny Southern California

San Francisco is comparable with London in terms of urban terrain. Boston too

 

[PeterC]

Imagine a not untypical use that you might use a car for; taking the family to a country fete with a picnic in the boot. Parking is in a farmer's field next to the site. How do you get your driverless car to drive into a field and park in the appointed place ("start a new line over by that tree")?
People use their cars as an extension of their home with all sorts of things that they may or may not need on the journey readily to hand. Hiring a driverless car would mean having to carry everything around with you.

I think that the vehicle us supposed to go away and come back when you need it. So spend the day carrying the picnic rather than fetching it from the car at lunchtime.

In practice vehicles will need a manual override for shunting in places like workshops which woukd also function in temporary car parks and similar off road areas. This would no doubt be restricted to walking pace.

 

[Meerkat]

Might just be an anecdotal experience of me growing up, but one of the key attractions of a car based holiday was that careful packing was not at all required.
If it would fit in the car and not obstruct the views out too much, you could take it.

Absolutely. Various trips I have done could have been done by flying/train and then a hire car, but I just drove there.
Not sure what the weather might be like? Just chuck stuff in for all possible weathers.
Multiple footwear choices thrown in the footwells etc etc
I would need a big barrow and lots of time to unload it all and then reload it the other side of a ferry!
And this is as a singleton, without all the buggies and clunky paraphernalia and toys families take with them

Even for routine use if I didn't have my own car I would have to have a box full of stuff cluttering up the house and lugged out to the hire car each time.
Some laughed at the need to have a frisbee in the boot at all times - but it was a godsend when I needed a skid for the half fallen off exhaust so I could move the car to somewhere safer.......

 

[dcbwhaley]

. Hiring a driverless car would mean having to carry everything around with you.

Exactly like any other form of public transport. Which is why so many people go on holiday by car rather than by train even when there is a train to their destination.

 

[zero]

The thread title seems to be a misnomer. The question in the OP is not really about driverless cars, it is about on demand taxis. It doesn't really matter whether the taxi has a human or computerised driver, look at certain cities in the Middle East and Asia where taxis are cheap and ubiquitous.

On my last road trip to Scotland we drove on and off about 5 ferries within the same number of hours. I wouldn't have liked to unload and reload all our belongings 10 times and have 5 extraneous rental transactions. I also note that packing the car boot for this trip began one week before actually departing.

I don't see a bridge being built to the Isle of Mull any time soon. Although I wonder whether a central AI directing all cars on the island would be better than hundreds of human drivers trying to guess each others' intentions...

 

[The exile]

It’s uncertain whether there will be a mix of privately owned and on-demand vehicles, but let’s say we achieve a scenario where 100% of road vehicles are autonomous and rented out from hire companies,

The “we’ll soon all have autonomous vehicles on a power by the hour basis” argument seems always to be predicated on the assumption that we all drive a) without luggage or other heavy objects, b) to a precise known destination, c) at a time we know in advance, d) on roads which we do not share with simple Mark 1 humans, e) without ever changing our minds or needing to react to the unforeseen (unless they have a “ xyz seconds till small child wets itself /throws up override”).
Maybe people who work on programming these vehicles do….

 

[birchesgreen]

f) that we hate driving and can't wait to give it up

well true in my case to be honest but i think one or two might be a bit more resistant.

 

[Ghostbus]

I can just about imagine a world where, through a mixture of carrot and stick, driverless technology results in a society where owning your own driverless car becomes very rare. Think private jets. In that world, you could see ferries not needing car decks.

I am finding it very difficult however, to imagine a world where it was neither feasible much less banned, for the common man, who is probably ordinarily moving around in shared use city shuttles or public transport, to hire a driverless car for long journeys. Hence the need for car ferries.

 

[The exile]

f) that we hate driving and can't wait to give it up

well true in my case to be honest but i think one or two might be a bit more resistant.

But how much of that is hating the actual driving, and how much is hating being stuck in a little tin box in a traffic jam? The first will be solved by autonomous vehicles - the latter probably made worse.

 

[birchesgreen]

But how much of that is hating the actual driving, and how much is hating being stuck in a little tin box in a traffic jam? The first will be solved by autonomous vehicles - the latter probably made worse.

You'll still be stuck in a small box in traffic along bumpy roads.

Though i did hear there is a tech where you can travel in a much more spacious vehicle that travels along smooth steel...

 

[HSTEd]

Though i did hear there is a tech where you can travel in a much more spacious vehicle that travels along smooth steel...

A car isn't really less spacious than a train unless you assume you only ever travel on half empty trains.
And given that most people going on holiday etc are probably going to the same destinations as other people.....

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Oct 2024 ==

But how much of that is hating the actual driving, and how much is hating being stuck in a little tin box in a traffic jam? The first will be solved by autonomous vehicles - the latter probably made worse.

Well once you remove the constraints that having a driver places on car design they will likely get substantially more comfortable inside....

 

[The Ham]

Whilst I'm not convinced that driverless cars are just around the corner, there are probably a few things which would change in the way people do life which could make the assumptions we make about how we travel today not necessarily a good starting point for fire they would be used.

First up, whilst it's possible that a lot of 9 year olds would likely be trusted to travel in then on their own, this could actually result in less traffic. Currently, if the journey is inappropriate for them to walk then a trusted adult will drive them and then go somewhere else (typically home). As such that potentially halves some journey numbers.

To give an example, a youth club has a year 5-6 season followed by a year 7-9 season, at the change over a load of cars used by the year 7-9 kids to get there are then used by the year 5-6 kids to get home, rather than the majority of both groups betting taken and collected by their own parents.

The other potential big change is the lack of space needed to park cars. Not only at home (reducing the amount of land people need to own), but also in cities. The latter could free up more highway space for other uses. For example, if you live in a terraced street, if there's no need to have an endless row of parked cars on both sides of the street, that would give people more space to walk/cycle and could even allow buses to get down streets they can't currently.

Which raises an interesting point, would these driverless vehicles look like our current cars?

I suspect, probably not. Certainly in urban areas having a multi pod based vehicle (so can carry one or two people in their own pod (i.e. physically separated from the others in the vehicle) which allow for overlapping troops to be carried out by a single vehicle but for a lower cost than hiring a vehicle for your exclusive use would likely be fairly popular.

There could also be minibus type vehicles, where you're not separated, but carries people doing overlapping journeys at a lower price point (like your own bus route which varies depending on who else is traveling at the same time).

Both of these overlapping options would likely be fairly popular for travel. As whilst they would be slower than point to point travel currently by car, not by much and by being driverless you could do tasks, so the extra time needed to travel is more productive than current journeys.

By sharing the cost of the car (which for most people is used for maybe 2 hours a day), by being able to need lower land use for homes and access roads and not having to speed time sorting out things like maintenance, insurance, cleaning and the like, then the answer to the question is it worth owning a car could shift significantly.

I don't know about others, however most of the stuff I carry in my car are items for the car. Ice scrapers, spare bulbs, maybe some tools and the like (historically coins for parking). Whilst there's a few CD's and DVD's, these are only the as we own them, as time goes by fewer and fewer own these things.

The heaviest personal item that goes in my car for a half day out (i.e. between meals) would be my water bottle, however I carry that in my backpack to and from work anyway, so it's not significant, especially given more and more places give you chance to refill them.

My personal lunch is quite light, so even a full day out isn't hard to carry that in a backpack. Even a full picnic for 5 people isn't that heavy, as long as they can each carry their own drinks.

What else, do people regularly have living in their cars which is for them and not their car?

For the country, there's a good chance that people would bee healthier, as you could more easily walk (say) 200m at each end to save you the cost of travel, especially if the road route is further. Especially given destinations are likely to be closer together due to needed less parking.

However, that's not looked at ferries yet, well, as others have point out they could well still be needed for freight. However, these could well be focused to fewer routes and potentially less frequent where they do exist, which would mean people choosing between a shorter journey time and being able to take more stuff.

As to loading/unloading your stuff, you could have a luggage pod which the "car" can carry, but could have wheels like a festival trolley which you could then wheel onto the passenger ferry and put into a locker. This with a few backpacks/wheeled travel bags and you could carry quite a lot of stuff. With the tech of golf trolleys, it could even follow you about, so wouldn't really be much effort.

You could have a larger version to remove the need for van based transport of goods. You could even (on a passenger ferry) have space for a shipping container or two on some mid sized ferries, which could remove the need for quite a few of the vehicle ferry routes.

You could even see some micro ferries (could carry, say, 20 people) so you could travel from (say) Minehead to Barry without having to drive all the way around. As this could be a viable route, when it currently isn't.

This could mean that there could be only 3 "traditional" ferries along the south coast (say) Dover, Southampton and Plymouth, but with far more passenger only routes.

One final area which could make the change to automated vehicles is that we have an aging population, and given the accident rates of drivers over 85 being comparable (and in some cases noticeable higher) to young drivers, there's likely to be a need (for road safely reasons) to encourage people to shift away from driving themselves in older age. Especially given the younger drivers only have that very high risk for about 3 years, whilst it's ongoing for those over 85.

Whilst the numbers over 85 are currently fairly small, they are rising fast. I don't have the exact data, but the ratio between 16-65 to 65+ is currently 2.4 : 1, by 2050 this reduces to 2.0 : 1 and by 2100 it reached 1.7 : 1 (that's on current immigration levels, is they were to fall then those ratios would also likely to fall too).

 

[Dai Corner]

None of the previous post is really specific to self-driving cars; we've had human- , horse- and mechanically-powered personal transport on demand for many centuries.

I'd suggest that if the need to pay drivers disappeared and taxi fares became comparable with bus fares (free for many) congestion would become far worse as 50 cars took the place of one bus.

 

[dgl]

I wonder how much crap is in the average car?, that alone will stop a lot of people still wanting to own a car. Its all the stuff that you might need on a day out just in case that you wont want to alleays carry on your person. Also people just like owning their own stuff.

Also an on demand driverless car will always be more expensive than a bus if a profit is to be made. The amount of people a bus can hold whilst only being one vehicle makes a big difference where maintenence costs are concerned, maintaining one large vehicle will be cheaper than tha amount of cars required for the same amount of capacity, even moreso if the occupancy rate of these cars is low due to everyone wanting to go on their own.

Also I doubt for the average journey that starts and ends close to a bus stop with a reasonable service will be more convenient. A car will have to come from somewhere to pick you up, which will take time, plus there probably won't always be a car free and you'll have to wait for one to become available.

 

[The exile]

I don't know about others, however most of the stuff I carry in my car are items for the car. Ice scrapers, spare bulbs, maybe some tools and the like (historically coins for parking). Whilst there's a few CD's and DVD's, these are only the as we own them, as time goes by fewer and fewer own these things.

The heaviest personal item that goes in my car for a half day out (i.e. between meals) would be my water bottle, however I carry that in my backpack to and from work anyway, so it's not significant, especially given more and more places give you chance to refill them.

My personal lunch is quite light, so even a full day out isn't hard to carry that in a backpack. Even a full picnic for 5 people isn't that heavy, as long as they can each carry their own drinks.

What else, do people regularly have living in their cars which is for them and not their car?

The most obvious - which sits in a sort of middle category - is the child seat. Are people really going to trust the cleanliness / hygiene / safety / suitability (size etc) of one that turns up in a random vehicle?
I currently have in the car a whole load of costumes - collected at a rehearsal on Friday to be delivered elsewhere on Tuesday. They're adding a bit of weight to the car in the interim, which is not the best environmental practice, but unloading them for the intervening period would require several trips up flights of stairs - risking dropping things or them getting wet if it happens to be raining and various other things that just add unnecessary tie and hassle (not to mention finding somewhere else to put them!) OK - that one's a bit niche, but add up all the niche ways in which a car is used to pick up larger items which don't then have to be unloaded immediately at the end of the same journey and I would imagine it makes up quite a sizeable minority of car journeys that couldn't / shouldn't be made by other means anyway.

The other potential big change is the lack of space needed to park cars.

Surely not - it would just involve moving where that space was. The mere fact that there are "rush hours" is an indicator of the fact that most vehicles are going to be required at roughly the same time - the reduction caused by the "removal" of the ones that aren't probably being more than offset by the increase in demand as restrictions on who may "drive" effectively disappear. Parent driving 3 kids to 3 separate schools before going on to work might result in more vehicle-miles than 4 pods taking each of them to their separate destinations, but the latter will probably require 3 or 4 separate pods/vehicles to be on the road at once instead of just 1. Each one may be smaller than a Chelsea Tractor, but all three or four combined won't be.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Oct 2024 ==

I wonder how much crap is in the average car?, that alone will stop a lot of people still wanting to own a car. Its all the stuff that you might need on a day out just in case that you wont want to alleays carry on your person. Also people just like owning their own stuff.

Also an on demand driverless car will always be more expensive than a bus if a profit is to be made. The amount of people a bus can hold whilst only being one vehicle makes a big difference where maintenence costs are concerned, maintaining one large vehicle will be cheaper than tha amount of cars required for the same amount of capacity, even moreso if the occupancy rate of these cars is low due to everyone wanting to go on their own.

Also I doubt for the average journey that starts and ends close to a bus stop with a reasonable service will be more convenient. A car will have to come from somewhere to pick you up, which will take time, plus there probably won't always be a car free and you'll have to wait for one to become available.

and will have no idea what state it's going to be in when it arrives (unless every one is always going to have to return to a depot for cleaning / fumigation etc between trips - I doubt you'd want to be in a pod that had just transported someone with a mystery "bug" to A&E).

 

[BayPaul]

I don't really understand why many people think that human nature will change so completely if and when self-driving cars appear.
If people's only desire was for cheap and efficient transportation, then everyone would have very simple hatchbacks. But most people have something more interesting - they like owning cars! They take an interest in what they look like, how they drive, how comfortable they are inside, what the vehicle says about them.
As others have said, people also need to keep their child seats, their buggies, bags for life, sweets to suck on the journey, camping gear etc in their cars. And the joy of owning a car is that it is available instantly, exactly where you want it.
Why would this change just because of some new technology? Self driving cars on demand could certainly take over from taxis, but I struggle to see them even making a dent into the number of privately owned vehicles. If anything, I'd see that number increasing, if rich parents suddenly discover that they can buy their 6 year old a self driving car and save themselves the school run!

If people can fit what they need for a holiday in a suitcase then they fly. If they want to take loads of stuff, then it'll need to stay in the car for the journey anyway.

Ferries are 90% about freight in any case, and most of this is unaccompanied (the trailer travels, whilst the cab stays behind to pick up a trailer that travelled the other way. Self driving lorries will be a huge benefit to the ferry industry, as they will be able to park directly on board, reducing the number of stevedores needed to load them.


I do wonder about the practicalities of self driving cars on real world roads. I live in Devon, and frequently have to drive on roads with tall grass growing up the middle, drive into hedges or people's driveways to allow cars going the other way to pass, deal with pedestrians in roads with no pavements, even occasionally ford small streams. I just can't imagine a computer dealing with any of that lot.

 

[Dai Corner]

Also I doubt for the average journey that starts and ends close to a bus stop with a reasonable service will be more convenient. A car will have to come from somewhere to pick you up, which will take time, plus there probably won't always be a car free and you'll have to wait for one to become available.

How many 'average journeys' start and end close to a bus stop and what is a 'reasonable service'?

I've never waited more than about 15 minutes or so for a taxi to pick me up right outside my suburban home and drop me off right outside my destination (pedestrianised streets permitting). The bus to the city centre is half-hourly at best and involves a 10 minute brisk walk to the nearest bus stop, and likely a similar walk if I'm going somewhere in the city centre. Plus another bus if I'm going to another part of the city.

I'm retired with plenty of time on my hands and a bus pass so I do use them but I can quite see why none of my neighbours do apart from a retired couple.

 

[Western Lord]

It has been suggested that on demand driverless cars would free up road space by eliminating on road parking. The problem is that this freed up road space will be more that taken up by the massive increase in traffic caused by there being not only cars with people in them on the roads, but loads of empty cars running between jobs or to and from a depot.

 

[The Ham]

It has been suggested that on demand driverless cars would free up road space by eliminating on road parking. The problem is that this freed up road space will be more that taken up by the massive increase in traffic caused by there being not only cars with people in them on the roads, but loads of empty cars running between jobs or to and from a depot.

I'm not sure that it would increase traffic, because it it did the roads would grind to a halt.

As I said, it's not uncommon for parents to drive there and back, as such they are already doing the empty pod movements. Likewise there's the potential for multi pod vehicles which could fill the gap between a car and a bus in terms of carrying people.

Also, there works be at least some carrying people in the contra flow direction.

Finally, depending on how far people are travelling, there's only so many journeys a vehicle could do during the peak hours.

Vehicles moving around off peak wouldn't be too much of an issue, and given that a lot of people would want to travel in the peak, the system would likely try to limit unnecessary movements.

The most obvious - which sits in a sort of middle category - is the child seat.

I was aware of someone who only ever used car club cars, even when they had small children. They would load the car seats into the car as they needed them.

It would be slightly different for a on demand vehicle, however there could be other ways to make it work.

Are people really going to trust the cleanliness / hygiene / safety / suitability (size etc) of one that turns up in a random vehicle?

Depends on the system. You could fine people if the next year rejected the vehicle and needed cleaning upon reaching the depot.

I currently have in the car a whole load of costumes - collected at a rehearsal on Friday to be delivered elsewhere on Tuesday. They're adding a bit of weight to the car in the interim, which is not the best environmental practice, but unloading them for the intervening period would require several trips up flights of stairs - risking dropping things or them getting wet if it happens to be raining and various other things that just add unnecessary tie and hassle (not to mention finding somewhere else to put them!) OK - that one's a bit niche, but add up all the niche ways in which a car is used to pick up larger items which don't then have to be unloaded immediately at the end of the same journey and I would imagine it makes up quite a sizeable minority of car journeys that couldn't / shouldn't be made by other means anyway.

As you say that's fairly niche, and whilst something which some deal with, could be resolved if that was an issue. It could even mean that someone else ends up with them who otherwise couldn't take them as they wouldn't have to drive them or even be at the rehearsal.

 

[Meerkat]

The peak could be worse. Currently folk drive to work and home again - the cars stay in the work car park all day. Driverless will be dropping off and moving on to find another gig or somewhere to park (likely to be out of town where the cheap land is), and then have to travel into the work areas to collect people - both peaks will be two way.
If you could combine it with lift sharing it would help, possibly even with cheaper fares for multi leg - shared minibus from office to a hub on the outskirts with swapping about to get minibuses to particular housing areas.

 

[gg1]

How many 'average journeys' start and end close to a bus stop and what is a 'reasonable service'?

More to the point, how many such hypothetical journeys start and end close to two bus stops served by same bus? The need to change buses would swing the convenience factor solidly towards on demand driverless cars.