This article points to a study showing a small number of AVs can be iused to improved mixed AV/human traffic by significant numbers. Not now, we all know that current AV tech is too cautious. But in the future. And, of course, this assumes no hacks, which would have the opposite effect.
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/article...-congestion-among-human-driven-vehicles/
Obviously putting people on mass transit (preferable autonomous) is the best choice. But that's not where I see things going in the near future (under 5 years.)
Ottawa's system and design currently has too many people living too far out for mass transit to be useful unless we put much more money into it and make it more reliable (which may not be possible no matter how much money is poured at the problems the LRT currently has.) I've been on commuter trains in Switzerland and Denmark where commuting from the equivalent of Embrun or Arnprior are comfortable, frequent, affordable and reliable.
But there is a history in most of Europe with commuting that we don't have in North America. They achieve a lot of that by making car ownership so expensive, biking and transit become the only affordable option. We would not stand for a tax of 150% of a car's value (in Denmark is ranges from 25% for a car under $12K to 150% on a car over $40K.)
Yet they have that as well as amazing, seamless, transit options.
I'm willing to bet those bus users with the worst commutes will be the last to come back to the office full-time if they come back at all.
We already know the true 'cost' of Transit is time (literal and inconveniently have to rework one's life to meet up with a bus 'schedule' - OC doesn't deserve that word to be used without quotes.)
For me in Westboro, if I commuted, my time cost would be roughly 1 hour per week. My limiting factor is I'd have to time my day to the bus schedule. So transit is a no brainer and that's why we are a single car household with an EV. We AV, we'd not own a car at all but just use robo-taxis all the time.
On the other hand, coming in from where I used to live would adds a minimum of 90 minutes per day, even if I ignored the specialty bus that used to come 3x in each direction only during peak hour, and drove to a park and ride parking lot. In that case, we are looking at 7.5 hours a week as the cost, plus the bus pass. That values ones time at well under $20 per hour if we take $500/month as the cost of owning a commuter vehicle.
That assumes the LRT system is working well. I can assure you that it isn't, I get the notifications at least weekly that the system is down. Now it doesn't really matter, there are so few riders, but the pandemic time has not been used to solve the issues caused by extreme cold and heat.
The commute drive isn't an insignificant time cost as well but an AV makes the time more useful as one could read or relax even more easily than one does on Transit.
Parking hassles more than just cost is a significant reason people don't commute with a car. AVs fix that problem. And they mean a family can have a single car since the AV isn't parked all day at the office, kids can use it after school to get to work or activities. Ride sharing is 'safer' because you aren't worried about the quality of the driver with your kids (My son once told me how much fun it was to take the S-curve near our home in the carpooler's Mercedes - and that was the dad driving, not some teen.)
In our car culture, I see AVs as becoming the preferred option for commuters, not transit.
Of course, we are talking years away, given my experience with Elon's descriptions and what my Tesla can actually do, we are a very long way away from Level 5.
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