Could self-driving taxis massively reduce cars on the road? One recent simulation predicts that they can:

These “taxibots”, the researchers imagine, are a marriage of mass carpooling and UPS delivery intelligence: they constantly roam throughout cities and match carpool routes with mathematical elegance. Ultimately, they estimate, 9 out of 10 cars would be completely unnecessary — as would public transit.

It doesn’t take much of a stretch to connect these sorts of ideas, with on-demand taxi apps like Uber now, does it?

• Read the original research
• Watch Brad Templeton’s keynote from NEXT14 about self-driving cars