The Ideal Public Transportation System

What would the ideal public transportation system look like?

Imagine a city where you would use an app to summon a robot-driven car. If you summon it in advance for a specific time, it will arrive at that time. When it drops you off, you can schedule a pickup time for when you need to return. If you need an unplanned ride, you can get one within a certain amount of time, say 15-30 minutes depending on the time of day.

This may sound like an inconvenience, until you consider the vehicles will be publicly owned and operated, which will mean the cost of repairs, insurance and any other vehicle costs will be public. You will only have to pay a small fee per ride, which will limit frivolous use of the public vehicles. If the fee is high enough, the system could pay for itself.

Other advantages include the ability to maintain a traffic logistics system, whereby all traffic can move at the same speeds on every road. With computer oversight, it would be possible to increase traffic speeds to clear out traffic in some areas, unlike today where traffic only moves as fast as the slowest vehicle. Consider: Stop lights and signs would be unnecessary, with a computer system to oversee how traffic moves.

Unlike trains or buses, this system allows freedom of movement within the designated city area, covering a much larger area than just "specific routes".

Naturally, there are limitations. You could only set up such a system within one city. Perhaps it might be feasible to build a whole country of roads like this, but we aren't there yet.

There will need to be a hard firewall between the app system to summon the cars, and the city traffic controller system. Otherwise, you risk allowing hackers to get in and screw up traffic for the entire town.

Bulk transport (i.e. currently done by 18-wheelers and large trucks today) will need to be limited to off-hours. In addition, only special robot-driven bulk transport trucks will be allowed in the city, so they will need to be loaded at the edge of the city, and then unloaded at receiving stations inside the city. Zoning for manufacturing will be limited to the edges of the city to allow for ease of transport outside the city, while still allowing for transport inside the city.

Feel free to do with this idea what you will.