When autonomous vehicles first reach the road, they may be the perfect complement to existing public transportation, helping to shuttle commuters between their homes and commuter rail stations. When fully self-driving cars arrive, they might replace passenger rail altogether.
A new report from The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) sketches that dire future for passenger-train travel and warns private and public rail officials to consider autonomous vehicles as a ?serious competitive threat.? Over time, the report says, at least 40 percent of current train passengers will prefer using a driverless car instead of a train.
That transition may be particularly swift in the United States, where cars have long been king. More than three-quarters of Americans commute to work alone in their cars, according to a 2015 American Community Survey report, while an additional 9.4 percent carpool. Only 5.2 percent use public transportation in any form, so even a small shift in habits could send rail into a downward spiral. ?With reduced overall ridership, rail companies? overall unit costs for all remaining passengers will escalate because of the inherently high proportion of fixed costs in operating a train network,? the BCG authors write. ?This could trigger price increases or reduced schedules, which would result in a further reduction in ridership.?

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As autonomous-vehicle technology improves so that the cars become fully operational in residential areas, AVs will pose a threat to subway...