I wonder what studies have been done on the efficiencies of a 100% self-driven vehicle road system.
Current road capacity algorithms are hobbled by the absolutely horrible abilities of some fixed fraction of the population, and the fact that every car is more or less blind with respect to system-wide traffic patterns. (Though GoogleMaps, Waze, etc. is starting to change that just a little bit.)
There will be a 25-50 year transition period, at the end of which it may no longer be legal, or even physically possible, for a human to pilot a vehicle. (I.e. there will be no steering wheel or pedals anymore.) Cars as we know them now will be viewed the way we now see horses, as curiosities mostly. When was the last time you saw a horse trotting or galloping on a freeway?
When every road vehicle is a node on the regional transit network, every vehicle's route and scheduling can be planned for maximum efficiency. Think of those giant factory conveyor belt systems, in sorting / bottling / packaging plants, where objects move with unbelievable speed AND extreme precision.
Road accidents are a major cause of congestion, ~95% or more accidents will disappear once you remove human assho-- cough, drivers -- from the equation.
With certain exceptions parking for private vehicles may become a thing of the past because vehicles will operate more or less like taxis. To satisfy the rich and the poor there will be differing levels of vehicle quality / luxury / capacity, but probably little or no focus on personal ownership. Only the superrich will be able to afford to keep a private vehicle idle & dedicated for their own use, the way some have lear jets today. Everyone else will use a shared-pool automated vehicle.
Wonder how seriously any of this has been mapped out / white-papered, and how capacity projections for a 100% automated road vehicle system compare to various rail modes for trips <80 miles.