Elon Musk Aims To Remove Huge Buses In Big Cities, Not Cool For Urban Space?

Elon Musk's Master Plan Deux has a huge goal of getting rid of fixed route transit without considering urban space. Musk explained that with the development of autonomy, it will make sense to reduce the size of buses and transform the role of a bus driver to that of a fleet manager.

Musk said that traffic congestion will be improved due to increased passenger space inside the vehicle by putting seats where there are currently entryways such as the center aisles. Musk also said that matching acceleration and braking of traditional heavy buses to other vehicles may avoid the inertial impedance to smooth traffic flow, City Metric reported.

Tesla Motors CEO Musk's plan would lead people all the way to their destination. There are fixed summon buttons at bus stops which would be useful for commuters who do not have a phone. The design also accommodates wheelchairs, strollers and bikes.

Musk assumes that transit is an engineering problem about vehicle design and technology. His vision is possible for low-density outer suburbia and rural areas, but for dense cities with big transit vehicles carrying huge ridership, Musk's vision is a disaster. It is because taking a lot of people from huge buses to small ones will increase the total number of vehicles on the road, FT Alphaville reported.

The technical measure of this is Vehicle Miles or KM and Travelled or VMT. The increasing VMT would mean increased emissions and road carnage, which are engineering problems that investors can work on.

Musk's plan, however, will be facing the problem of space. The increasing VMT would mean that vehicles are taking more space to move the same number of passengers, which may be possible in low density and rural areas where there is a lot of space per person.  However, in a  city that has a little space per person, the efficient use of space will be the core problem of Musk's urban transportation.