Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos
[The car that returns home] solves one problem [transit parking space] at the expense of another -- fuel consumption.
Those aren't equal problems, and net-net, the car that returns home is a win because uses no net new space (it always parks in its "home" space) and uses much less fuel (so long as a station trip is less than half of a commuting trip, which is a pretty sure bet).
And "fuel consumption" is a problem for which the individual bears most of the price, as opposed to T-station parking and core congestion which are big social costs.
But the autonomous Station Car, as Matthew points out, is ever more likely to be short range all-electric, or a plug-in hybrid running in battery-only mode, or a low speed electric (any of which can easily "do" a 5mile commuter-rail or heavy-rail station round trip twice a day, particularly if they plug themselves in). If they end up being shared across households, better still (saving a net space and, when in gasoline mode, running "warmed up" with better fuel economy and lower emissions)
That car that returns home driverless then uses a parking space that is no longer available to people making daytime trips to that neighborhood.
Its key to picture the park-and-ride 'burbs, in which most cars are domiciled off-street in private driveways or garages, but which demand expensive (subsidized) T-provided parking at rail stations.
I'm assuming these car-to-station trips will be most popular in the sprawly 'burbs served by commuter rail or the more far flung heavy rail stops (and where T ridership growth is often capped by the availability of daily parking at stations). All such 'burbs (picture Attleboro or Quincy or Malden or Littleton or Reading) can be assumed to already have devoted ample "home base" garage or driveway space to their cars.
