Sign of the #RobotTakeover: 3000 Autonomous Cars could Replace NYCs 13,000 Car Taxi Fleet with a 2.3 Minute Wait Time

That means robot cars running around picking people up and jetting around the city to busy areas.

CSAIL's Daniela Rus and her team created an algorithm that crunched data from three million New York City taxi rides, calculating routes and schedules for two-person, four-person, and ten-person vehicles. The results showed that 3,000 four-person cabs could help handle 98 percent of the City's demand (with a waiting time of 2.3 minutes), while 3,000 two-person cabs could handle 94 percent and just 2,000 ten-person vehicles could handle 95 percent.

I wonder if this study just had the cars gather people and deposit them in the most efficient manner? So if a person had a long trip would a car be routed to them empty? Or would it wait and gather 3 other people before it came to pick the person up?

In any case the idea of empty cars picking people up sounds pretty creepy. I would refuse to ride in a empty taxi fearing that it could be hacked and rerouted to someplace where you can be robbed. I guess that could happen in a regular taxi but you figure you could catch the guy easier then some faceless hacker.