Comment by BlargMcLarg
3 years ago
Carpooling failed because people prefer having everything under control in the face of how cheap car-based travel is already. Thinking self-driving cars will fix a luxury problem is a pipedream.
Whether it is self-driving with an incredibly optimized algorithm (good luck with that) or manual carpooling, the same problems are still going to bubble up. The solutions already exist. We, as a society, just don't want to deal with the consequences.
Driving individual cars isn't cheap. The overall for society are huge. Roads are massively subsidized. Car dependency hurts housing prices as well.
Carpooling failed because it doesn't make sense to use amateur drivers on the same overfilled road network to carry a couple more people. If the entrance to the city is backed up, car-pool lanes don't add much.