As it stands today, unmanned vehicles (entirely operated by AI with no human intervention) still has shortcomings from accidents or collisions. Also, how would society react to AI being the driver? If there’s no steering wheel on an entirely AI operated car: how can you override its protocols when it becomes rogue? There are “self driving” cars, but how many use that as their main mode of transportation than driving a car?
The technology for it exists, but remains rather niche since there’s still more cars driven by people than cars operated by AI. Do YOU want to replace your own car with an AI operated one or rather keep one meant to be used by humans? As of now, it’s rather rare unless you happened to spot one whilst on the road. Most car dealerships only sell “normal” cars intended for humans, even Teslas still require a human driver.
At least 60% of the world population live and work in dense urban areas where rail can leave them on walking distance of both work and home. 20% more live in places dense enough for urban buses. So 80% of the world population doesn’t need a car.
As for costs, the day drivers are forced to pay the externalities of their driving is the day cars die as a form of regular transport.
Really depends where their job is. I wouldn’t be selling my house or moving apartment just because I got a new job, so I could walk there instead of just driving. Just because someone lives in a city, doesn’t mean their job is right next door.
For the aditional 20% who can use busses, the problem continues to be travel time. Fx. I could take a train, and a bus to get to work. But it’d take about 1 hour. I’m in country with a comparatively great public transportation system, but I can get to work in a car in 15 minutes instead. Sure, if you get anough people to switch to public transportation, maybe you can run more buslines, because there’d be enough people to fill those lines, but you’d need an astounding amount of lines to avoid people having to switch busses, and wasting time by not going a direct route. I have a car because I’m not going to waste 1,5 hours per day on transportation.
The problem is convenience. If the transportation system isn’t at least as convenient as a car, people won’t use it willingly. They’d even pay a premium to avoid it. You can force people by banning cars, but good luck with that. We’ve seen how the french react when a few speedcameras are installed (Spoiler, they burn them).
I want car-free cities, with the exception of transporting goods and work that absolutely requires a car. It’d be utopic! But I just don’t believe we can cater enough to everyone’s needs in any kind of satisfactory way, without going completely authoritarian and removing people’s ability to live and work where they want to.