One feature of the transport market (from a mile high view) is that demand is almost infinite.
It seems this is also true for cars and trucks. No matter how many roads we build, there is congestion. I think automated cars are going to show that one of the limiting factors to how much our society uses such transportation is the supply of piloting labor.
Also to chime in: It's not literally infinite. It's just much higher than the current economy can supply.
This is known as the Pigou-Knight-Downs Paradox (or Downs-Thomson Paradox). Building new roads creates its own demand. Congestion is a function of the speed of alternative modes of transport, rather than road capacity. This is because when you build a new road that improves journey time, it becomes more appealing to drive. Congestion increases to the point when it becomes quicker to get public transport instead of driving. If you want to cut congestion, don't build roads, build railways.
You could also just legislate that every time one uses a car you have to stand in a shaking room packed with people for half and hour. I bet that would really cut down on congestion. If not, just up the wait time in the hot box until it does. People, could of course, would have the option pay for someone to do their waiting for them.
And self-driving cars may increase congestion yet.
Whatever speed gains self-driving cars may attain by reducing time spent at a (now deprecated) traffic light or at an intersection/yield sign, people may just make more trips because road conditions have temporarily improved, thus cancelling that benefit.
Say you decide not to drive to work but instead take the rail because you don't want to deal with the hassle of traffic. Maybe the rail has its downsides too, but they are acceptable to you. Now if self-driving cars makes highway congestion to work better, you may just be that person who switches from rail to car.
I think for it (demand) is very high, but it's not really possible to say for sure without supplying a lot more, free piloting can give us. I think infrastructure will continue to be the limiting factor.
* I think infrastructure will continue to be the limiting factor.*
Autopilots with superhuman reflexes and "telepathic" sharing of sensor data/intelligence could be used to increase the carrying capacity of roads by almost an order of magnitude. Photos of roads indicate that we are only using 1/10th of them to carry cars, spatially speaking.
It seems this is also true for cars and trucks. No matter how many roads we build, there is congestion. I think automated cars are going to show that one of the limiting factors to how much our society uses such transportation is the supply of piloting labor.
Also to chime in: It's not literally infinite. It's just much higher than the current economy can supply.