&gt;<i>You&#x27;re right, traffic patterns are not balanced, so the cars returning to the hot areas for pickups will not be contributing to the traffic in the most-congested direction.</i><p>Except that in a city, all traffic contributes to congestion,there is no single &quot;commute direction&quot;.<p>&gt;<i>Also, this was all happening when self-driving cars were not around the corner. It&#x27;s a different story today.</i><p>That &quot;corner&quot; is decades away, meanwhile, people need to get to work <i>today</i> -- and you still haven&#x27;t explained how self-driving cars can replace a million+ trips&#x2F;day on city streets that are already at capacity during rush hour. They may be self-driving, but they still drive on roads.