[orkoden]

> we imagine some "delivery only" roads

This is possible but unlikely. There have been numerous plans in the past to build such large infrastructure. Like large pneumatic tubes to every house for deliveries. It usually turned out to be too expensive to build.

[ChuckMcM]

The trick though is to understand the economics of what you're trying to do before you implement it. Additional rail lines are quite expensive, one lane roads not so much.

Starting small, consider an autonomous truck that uses electricity like a city bus to move a container along a single lane protected from other traffic. You have one end in the port of Oakland (busy container terminal) and the other in a distribution warehouse outside Livermore (lots of open space, access to freeways and rail). Now one has to price out the cost savings of having containers appear automatically in a transhipping location without burning diesel or getting stuck in traffic.

You save a bit on the driver, you save more on the gas, and you take roads off the freeway which will help you to encourage local municipalities to give you easements for your autobot trucks to drive on.

It would be fun to sit down with a trans-shipper and find out their costs and whether or not you could save them time and effort.