Public Transport

There isn't anything on removing bus drivers at the moment.

Bus drivers need to be recruited and trained, which can take six months to a year, Mr Siow said. There is also a need to buy buses and build depots and interchanges.

“All of us want... more bus services, more frequent buses. But behind every bus, there are two, two and a half, maybe more bus drivers, and it’s just very difficult to get,” he added.

The authorities had also considered minibus services, but the maths did not work out when a driver was added to the equation, Mr Siow said.

It seems the autonomous bus will be mini buses and routes will change depending on the requirements

deploying smaller-capacity driverless vehicles “fairly extensively” on fixed routes within HDB estates.

These routes can be changed as needed, with self-driving minibuses and shuttles taking people to transport nodes during peak hours, and then places such as polyclinics or community centres during off-peak times.

Bus drivers are expensive. If you can remove the cost of the driver your typical transit system can run 1/3rd more service to the people. Run more service and your transit system becomes more useful - either you increase coverage and so people can get more places thus they don't need a car, or you run more service on the routes you have and so people don't think a car is more convenient than transit. Either way, this is a big win for people who are using transit as the system is better, and typically that level of service increase will attract people who currently are not using transit.

Of course there are likely costs of autonomous systems as well, and so likely you cannot add that much more service, but any more service is a large win.

It isn't that they don't want to pay these people it is that they cannot! Money doesn't grow on trees, drivers pay needs some come from someplace and that pot is limited. You can talk about increasing that pot, but even if you can do so it is still better to get more transit service.