Public transit at the precipice of autonomy.
What will change when driver costs go to zero?
Transit agencies are headed for a collision with autonomy. Self driving cars and busses are coming but the structure of transit organizations and their boards are not prepared to adapt.
Technology is largely dismissed by government agencies and transit agencies are no exception. This largely stems from the lack of clear objectives and incentives. In a business, you want profit and get paid if you get it. In a government you can spend as much money as you get budgeted. Regardless of how you spend it, you get paid the same. This lack of incentive provides no reason to innovate or even adopt technologies.
In government, doing nothing is the least risky option.
My experience on the board of our local transit agency matches this understanding. Its a volunteer board so there is no incentive for board members to take risks. The upsides risks are much lower than the downsides which include negative news articles. This incentive structure penalizes taking risk and keeps agencies from thinking about about new technologies.
Bringing up the topic of self driving prompts scoffs from other board members, despite it being clear that full self driving is coming and will disrupt transit.
In some areas full self driving is already solved in the sense that its safer than drivers. Waymo reports has driven 25 million “rider only” miles and averages 17,000 miles between disengagements. These disengagements are when the car’s autonomous features disengage and a remote driver needs to pilot the vehicle. Telsa is also moving toward full self driving but hasn’t yet reached human level safety.
Even if you don’t think full self driving is ready for transit today, the increasing rate of progress in toward driverless cars means it will be here in the next few years.
The last time transit faced a shift this big was when we moved from horses to cars. But back then, the change was mostly additive. Internal combustion engines made transit more compelling because larger capacity vehicles were possible. Autonomy is different because it will challenge the very idea of public transit by making the alternatives cheap and luxurious.
The primary competitors to transit are personal vehicles and ride share services like Uber/Lyft.
Autonomy will cut out the cost of a driver from ride share services. So if drivers currently get 75% of the fare cost we can conservatively estimate the cost of ride share services will drop by 50% with self driving cars.
For personal vehicles, the cost in terms of time for driving your vehicle drops because instead of driving the owner can do other things while they ride. This will tip the incentives away from transit toward self driving personal cars.
Both of these changes in incentives will lower the demand for public transit at the current prices. What can agencies do to adapt.
Avoid getting locked into human driven transit technologies and equipment. If a self driving bus service will be ready in a year or two, no human driven busses should be purchased until then. Lease busses where possible instead of buying them. The vehicle technologies is changing quickly.
Avoid signing long term contracts that would prevent the adoption of benefit from self driving technology.
Think about how routes and vehicles will change when the cost per hour of each vehicle is cut by 50%
Don’t take risks on new technologies. Self driving busses and cars will have bugs when the are first rolled out. Ensure the hardware provider takes the risk of the tech working. Pay by the mile or ride.
Reach out to technology companies and ask what they can do for you. Be the squeeky wheel.
If your transit agency is not thinking about these things, look forward to a decade of increasing costs per ride with declining ridership.
