I guess you (and danmaz74) have a point here. In both my supposition and yours, we are assuming computers are smart enough to coordinate the vehicles well, only for cars, the infrastructure already exists. I guess my only reply here is that, yes, there is the cost of the infrastructure itself; however, let's say that this PRT thing takes off, the fact that their infrastructure is physically separate from the road, it would initially alleviate traffic issues much more than self-driving cars would. Having to deal with irrational, nondeterministic human drivers would probably make traffic alleviation not as apparent at first compared to a completely parallel infrastructure.
Still, this does ignore adoption rates. In a more real world, I think you'd argue that adoption of self-driving cars would be quicker and easier than adoption of PRT, that might hamper my model. So, perhaps the conclusion of the article is right after all.
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I guess you (and danmaz74) have a point here. In both my supposition and yours, we are assuming computers are smart enough to coordinate the vehicles well, only for cars, the infrastructure already exists. I guess my only reply here is that, yes, there is the cost of the infrastructure itself; however, let's say that this PRT thing takes off, the fact that their infrastructure is physically separate from the road, it would initially alleviate traffic issues much more than self-driving cars would. Having to deal with irrational, nondeterministic human drivers would probably make traffic alleviation not as apparent at first compared to a completely parallel infrastructure.
Still, this does ignore adoption rates. In a more real world, I think you'd argue that adoption of self-driving cars would be quicker and easier than adoption of PRT, that might hamper my model. So, perhaps the conclusion of the article is right after all.