Now think about how much more complicated a roadway system is compared to a railroad -- i.e., a system with two degrees of freedom (forward/backwards and laterally) and countless interactions with bicycles and pedestrians vs. a system with one degree of freedom (forward/backwards) and very limited needs to account for external influences -- and ask yourself if this makes any sense at all.
I'm still trying to envision a scenario where people will give up their cars and instead opt to use automated vehicles operated by companies like Uber and Lyft. I can see this having great appeal in urban areas, but these are areas where many people are already giving up their cars anyway. In that sense, the automated vehicle is competing not against a conventional car, but against subways and buses.
I can definitely see automated vehicles introduced as a cost-saving measure in cases where a cost reduction is realized by having the driver replaced -- such as taxi cabs and the trucking industry.
A railroad system is old technology, while self-driven vehicles are very technologically advanced. Technology on railroad systems is less complicated, and trains don’t go everywhere a car or truck can go. Railroads are limited to their tracks, while vehicles can go just about anywhere where a GPS can guide them to, and just about anywhere that the terrain is favorable.
Notice that, somebody had to include the line of “for safety reasons”, as justification for creating a new job. With self-driven vehicles, jobs will be eliminated, while the cost of living will go down for those not involved in the automobile and oil industries.
Even with the many types of encounters and obstacles that will be found on the roads, self-driven vehicles will still prove to be superior to humans when it comes to safety. NO human alive can detect as many obstacles and as many different obstacles are a self-driven vehicle, and no human alive can react to problems on the road as quickly and as safely as s self-driven vehicle. The system won’t be 100% perfect, but then, humans will be a lot less safer when in control of their vehicles.
I can see that with future enhancements and developments, that the roads themselves will have to include technology that will bring self-driven vehicles much closer to being 100% safe, though never fully 100%.
I won’t be around to see full 100% implementation of self-driven vehicles, and neither will most people alive today. But, we’ll get there eventually, just like adopting the horseless carriage took decades towards almost 100% adoption and acceptance.