Isn't a big part of congestion due to inefficient human driving?
While it won't be v1.0, I could see autonomous vehicles taking half the cars off the road (car pooling) and then providing much more efficient transit regarding speed, lane changes, real time route selection etc.
This will definitely be more valuable for the suburbs, or cities with poor public transport infrastructure. Perhaps in some places your autonomous Uber will take you to a much more efficient bus hub (departing every 5 minutes) on the city fringe, but I do believe it will work in urban areas as well.
And don't forget, comparing Uber in a time of transit problems isn't really a fair comparison as those are the times when many other people, not used to making that drive, flood the roads. If I drive to the right train station, transit is about 30% faster for me during peak hour so I agree with your point.
Maybe in some cities, but the roads in London are gridlocked all the time and there is something like a 98:2 ratio of people using mass transit vs driving. I would assume it is the same in NYC, etc. No amount of lane selection, car pooling will ever make that better. And unless people carpool from the exact same place to the same workplace, there's going to be duplication of drop off points which probably makes things worse as they'll be downtown with the most traffic.
And no, there was no surge on uber to get that journey. There was other transit routes everyone else will take but I was in a real rush (even routing round the disruption would've still been way faster than driving).
To be honest though, if you're driving to the transit station then you're missing the point. I'm really talking to the masses of people that have giving up/will give up their car entirely and rely on public transit & the occasional taxi (uber, autonomous, whatever) for when they've been out partying or what not.
While it won't be v1.0, I could see autonomous vehicles taking half the cars off the road (car pooling) and then providing much more efficient transit regarding speed, lane changes, real time route selection etc.
This will definitely be more valuable for the suburbs, or cities with poor public transport infrastructure. Perhaps in some places your autonomous Uber will take you to a much more efficient bus hub (departing every 5 minutes) on the city fringe, but I do believe it will work in urban areas as well.
And don't forget, comparing Uber in a time of transit problems isn't really a fair comparison as those are the times when many other people, not used to making that drive, flood the roads. If I drive to the right train station, transit is about 30% faster for me during peak hour so I agree with your point.